Day 48
game
I have a sister that is two years younger than I am. We are close now, but still incredibly different. She has dark hair and wears her heart on her sleeve. I was born with white blond hair and just spent three years in therapy learning how to cry. When we were kids, she loved to play games. She has a fierce competitive spirit. I, do not. What I remember from the various interactions over Candyland or Chutes and Ladders, and later, playing card games, is that I wasn’t eager enough to win, sad enough when I lost or interested enough in playing over and over until I was good at it. I thought she was irrationally attached to something silly; I was the one that was always saying “It’s just a game.” But for her this was an important point of connection and I just wasn’t getting it.
Today, my four siblings and their nine kids and I all played some rousing games. It was so fascinating to watch those of us who inherited the competitive nature work with those of us who were playing “just for the fun of it.” Watching the attitudes, the skills, the “fronting,” and the disappointments manifest in forty-somethings all the way down to six-year-olds was hilarious. The game turns us all into children, directs us all to let go of our need for things to be anything more than the immediate gratifications or devastations of winning and losing.
It has always been difficult for me to understand the value of playing games, but today I understood that the one of the sadder things about my childhood was the fact that I became an adult so young. I didn’t understand how to “play” in a way that simplifies things and gives us an opportunity to practice discipline, fun, comforting each other and most of all pushing each other to “play harder.” Today, I look at those in my family who love the game, and I see new teachers and hope that I can keep learning to let go of my adultishness and give the little girl some room to play.
