Five Minute Friday: Cheer

Cheer.

I’m not sure where to begin.

When I think of cheer so many things come to mind. The chickadees nesting in the chokecherry tree outside my kitchen window. C’s gut laugh when he finds something particularly funny. Champagne, though I don’t like it, I appreciate the look of the clean, crisp glass, and the bubbles as they pop and fizz.

It’s a grey day outside today, and definitively anti cheer. And yet so much of today has cheer about it. I started my day in prayer, waking on clean white sheets, next to the man I love, with a little boy kissing my nose, saying “I love you.” I reached a goal in my weight loss, a hard won personal victory. I have the prospect of signing off on a new couch at lunch time, a grown up couch for this grown up life of mine.

And then I think cheer leader. Having nothing to do with the fact that Bring It On is my guilty secret, one of my favorite movies. And that it just came to Netflix. And that I just watched it. When I was a child and obsessed with America, the way British kids are for at least six months of their childhood, I wanted pom poms so bad. Pom poms, and a really high pony tail. I got the pom poms in Florida when I was 11 and they were glorious. The high ponytail I just figured out how to achieve about three weeks ago, another personal victory!

I like encouraging people. I get so much joy out of complimenting someone on a job well done. I love to put into words the value of someone who can’t grasp it themselves. I love to motivate people. I love to get people excited about something. I love to get people excited about themselves. I get more joy cheering someone else on, than in achieving my own goals. So I guess that does actually make me a cheer leader? Roll call.