“It’s only a season”.  I have heard this many times as the mom of two young children, a phrase that is meant to encourage and remind that these days of toddlerhood are fleeting.  This phrase has become my mantra, not in motherhood, but in “season” – football season, baseball season…insert your sport of choice here.  You see, I am the wife of a coach and my life tends to revolve around whatever season my husband is coaching at the time. 

 

With the start of each season, I am the first to whine to my husband, “what time are you going to be home?”, “ two-a-days start when?”, “you have another meeting?  What can you possibly talk about for hours at a time, every day of the week?”  Clearly, I am the glowing example of the perfect Coach’s Wife.

 

I know that I am not alone in this.  I have talked to enough wives of coaches to know that we all wrestle with many of the same things that I whine to my husband about.  Some of us have the benefit of loving the sport that he coaches and really wanting to go to the games and be involved.  Some of us suffer through and just grit our teeth until the season is over.  Either way, during the season he’s “Coach” and this means more time away…both physically and mentally. 

 

I’m not trying to classify everyone’s experience as the wife of a coach, but I think that we could all use a little community…a place to belong where other women know the specific struggles and trials of sharing your husband with a group of students and parents.  This is not meant to be a place to whine and complain to each other about who’s got it worse than who…I don’t think there is any good that can come of that.  No, this is a place to be encouraged that you’re not alone in this journey; that someone else understands what you’re going through.  To be reminded that ”It’s only a season.”