" I ain't nothing but a winner" The Bear

Looking up to Bear Bryant, how could I not be competitive? Being a middle child, how could I not be competitive? With me playing sports, how could I not be competitive.

If you know me at all then you know I am competitive. I don't like to lose, I don't like being told that I can't do it, I LIKE... no I LOVE to win. I know, I can admit, it's not my best trait. I am working on it..

Thinking back I am not sure when it started. I mean I don't know if as a baby I had to crawl faster than the other babies, I don't know if I had to win at Candyland, but I do remember.......

I jumped out of our 2 story window as a child to prove to a boy that girls can do anything that boys can do ( I jumped.. he didn;t... point proven)

Treading water for over an hour because my sister said I couldn't for 15 minutes.

Being devasted because we lost the volleyball game to go to districts my senior year of high school.

My friends would not want to be on my team in Pictionary because I would yell at them when they were not paying attention. ( I know not the friendliest thing to do)

Watching every Alabama football game and gloating after every win and feeling every defeat like I played the game myself.

Jumping hurdles in the county track meet to get extra points for the team and almost killing myself because I had never practiced hurdles before.

Being competivie with myself and I was always trying to see how fast I could accomplish a task.

Timing myself to see how how fast I could complete a word search find.

I am not sure where I get this competitve spirit, and I call it a spirit because yes at times it is like I am possessed, for as I have gotten older I have tried working on it. I try to convince myself that I don;t have to win at everything, ok I am still working on this one.

But it does not help that my husband is just as competitve. I think that is one of the things that attracticed us to each other. WE met playing beach volleyball. And to this day we still love competing against each other. And I must admit that my oldest son also has the competivite spirit. He loves to challenge me to arm westling and pushup contest ( which I am happy to say that as of now I can still beat him at both... but not for long). When he was five and playing Bible Bingo at church and won he pointed to the other boy and said " in your face". That was a great opportunity to teach him a lesson in graceful winning. It also opened my eyes that I needed to learn that lesson as well. Now don't get me wrong, I am not cured . I still like to win but I can be more gracious about it and if I lose ( and that is a big "if") then I know its not the end of the world.