Appreciate Your Team

 When my younger son was born, my mom stayed with us for a week. At the time, there was a BabyGAP up the street and she went to scope out the sale rack. She came home with two matching navy blue T-shirts, put one on each boy and dubbed them Team Beall. 

The name stuck and almost two decades later, I find new ways to be grateful for them all the time. They aren't the chubby, silly Team they once were, but they are helpful, kind, hilarious, joyful and hardworking. We still play a lot of games and take a lot of walks - throwbacks to an earlier time and benefits of being pandemic housemates - but our Team has evolved into a really lovely thing.

I find it disingenuous to brag about them, as I maintain they are excellent humans on their own merit. However, I do find the way they support eachother, me and others. Their definition of Team is a beautiful thing - they make meals, provide fun, offer ideas, listen, clean up, laugh, help others, support creativity and love openly.

No, we did not always enjoy this blissful existence. As a family, we have managed a lot of ick. Ick makes you stronger and in the end more appreciative of what you have, I think. There are times when one of us (including me) will drop a ball and the others have a gentle (or sometimes not so gentle) conversation about it. But sustaining the Team has remained everyone's focus - even as we all pursue our own goals.

This mindset has helped me to build and maintain other Teams. My boyfriend of many years is an annex to our Team, of course, but the two of us have our own little Team that supports eachother through tricky moments, celebrate successes and laughs always.

With each of my classes, I try to build this kind of Team. Sometimes we use those corny but helpful "team building exercises," but mostly we pay attention to what people are good at, publicly highlight their gifts, subtly help them through academic and personal challenges, maintain a sense of joy and laugh a lot. Virtual school has, of course, highlighted the need for being part of a Team, but kids are seeking this connection, too, and seem to be working hard to sustain our Team from their own spaces.

A word about the ick, as we are all likely to feel it in the long month that is January. Ick highlights something that needs attention. It's not the nicest way to get us to notice something, but its an effective one. In the coming days and weeks when we feel the ick coming on, a challenge for each of us is to ask these question:

What is the ick telling me to notice? 

How can I make this ick better for that person? 

What do I need to do differently to help the ick become something more productive?

It's easy to appreciate your Team when things are going swimmingly. But the way we get to the part where things are going swimmingly is to address the ick. It's important to appreciate your Team in these moments, too. Because by showing you the ick, they are trusting you to help fix it.