Running the right way in the wrong direction

A few weeks ago my 16 year old niece went to her first ever football game. 

It wasn't that she has always wanted to go to a match or been desperate to be part of that " more important than life or death," football experience.

It was more that she had promised her boyfriend, a Crystal Palace fan, she would go with him 

She had taken him to an interactive theatre event - something she loved, and he said in that case he was going to take her to a football match - something he loved.

Donning the appropriate colours, my niece joined in with the spirit of the match, supporting the right team once her boyfriend had pointed out which one that was. 

 She came back after half time, ready to full of football wisdom and ready to cheer but got more and more concerned as the game went on.

" Someone needs to tell them," she said anxiously to her boyfriend.

" Tell them what?" he asked.

"Tell them they're running in the wrong direction," she explained

And that's how my niece learnt that in a football match, the goal ends change at half-time.

 And  what looks like running the wrong way, is actually running in the right direction.

And it set me to thinking, that life often feels like that.

Like sometimes everything we do is taking us further from our dreams.

That however hard we try to run in the right direction, something pulls us in the wrong one.

" Life is what happens while we're making other plans," that's what John Lennon said.  

And he is right.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that it is life,  and not the plans, that is what's important.

And perhaps, if we stand still for a moment instead of running, we will realise that it's not that we are running in the wrong direction but that our goals are constantly changing. 

Life is full of "half-times,"- starting school, leaving school, falling in love, falling out of love, getting a job,losing a job, buying a house, selling a house, getting  married, getting divorced, becoming a parent, watching your children leave home- and when you come back for the next part of the match, without us knowing it, our goals have moved..

And even if it feels like the wrong direction, we are usually running the right way.

After the excitement of her first football game,  my niece was persuaded to go to another match.  

Not Crystal Palace this time, but their arch rivals, Brighton and Hove Albion.

Shamelessly exchanging her Palace colours for the blue and white of " The Seagulls," she entered the stadium near her home for the first time.

Now a football expert, she didn't query the change of direction at half-time and could say things like " penalty," and " off-side," and " come on ref, use your eyes! "

And when Brighton and Hove scored, no one cheered louder or raised their arms higher than she did.

Which is why, the next day,  she was on the front cover of her local paper, The Argus: famous forever as a one-time-only-die-hard Seagull's fan. 

Which just goes to show, that  in the end,it's not the direction you're running in that matters so much as how loud you shout and knowing just when to cheer.