Winning isn’t everything, but it feels awesome

When it comes to competition, I’m in it to win it.

So much so that I will leave my 9-year-old daughter in the dust in the middle of a war-torn field of ramshackle hideouts to get ahead in a paintball match.

On a family vacation to Maui over Thanksgiving weekend, that’s exactly what happened.

My 11-year-old son and his teenage/young adult cousins went to play paintball on the side of a dirt mountain in Olowalu. The adults opted to go shopping in Lahaina. But after a morning of Black Friday consumerism, we ended up checking in on the kids.

I watched as they shuffled through this “Call of Duty”-like battle scene complete with makeshift tree houses, haphazard wooden walkways and large concrete tunnels used to hide from the enemy. The site even had a dilapidated bus and double-decker sugar cane train cab thrashed by paintball bullets.

I don’t know what came over me, but there’s something about the war-zone environment that stirred up my competitive spirit. I just couldn’t help myself. I decided to jump in the game, despite being poorly outfitted for the battle in a dress and slippers.

I didn’t care that I was at a disadvantage — never having played the game before — and warned by the referees that I could get hurt because I was inappropriately dressed. It was a last-man-standing match and I was on a mission to win. In my mind, this was war.

Consumed by the thrill of “staying alive” and opening fire on the enemies, I forged ahead while the rest of my teammates hid behind the battered obstacles. I felt like I was in a movie! I yelled to my daughter to take cover, but she stood stunned, looking like the proverbial deer in headlights. I continued forward, seeking to eliminate my youngest opponents first.

As I was shooting at one of the kids, my nephew circled around and put a paintball bullet into my side (it was painful and I had a 4-inch bruise for several days), but I continued playing in the next rounds. I ended up staying in the game longer than my much stronger teenage nephews, who I also beat in a weightlifting competition the night before. Stunned speechless that they were defeated by their out-of-shape, middle-age aunty, the trash talking stopped.

I’m not particularly athletic, but I am willing to challenge myself and fight until the end.

I know that winning isn’t everything, but it feels so good, especially when it’s against kids nearly half your age who think they are invincible. Sometimes it’s the strongest-minded, not the strongest, who survive on the battlefield.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by the women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Kristen Consillio at kconsillio@staradvertiser.com.