Revisiting My Young Adult Self — Melanie Springer Mock

My college cross country coach took thousands of pictures, and this past weekend, at a memorial service and reception, his many athletes were invited to sift through them, taking what we wanted. I kept these, plus a few of teammates who weren’t able to make the service.

The coach and I had a complicated relationship, though his influence on so many other athletes was made clear following his death in March. At the reception, as I talked to people I hadn’t seen in several decades, I felt gratitude for coach’s efforts to draw so many different people together, and for the friendships I made with my teammates, including Jill, with whom I’d just led a trip to Costa Rica.

What I tell myself now about that time then isn’t really reflected in these pictures. I remember myself as ugly and flabby, certainly far less chiseled than my teammates. I remember myself as weak-willed and dour. I remember myself as unworthy of so much, including the friendships I’d made on that team.

I want to tell that college student that all will be well in her lifetime. I want to tell her to relax, to not be so worried about her future: she will find what she’s looking for. I want her to know that the next few decades will pass in a blink, and that one day she’ll be at her coach’s memorial service, a middle-aged woman in a sea of middle-aged teammates, all older than her coach was when she was in college.

Mostly, I want the student in those pictures to know she is fearfully, wonderfully made, fierce and strong, worthy of so much more than she knows. To be honest, this is a message I need to hear now, too.