Is It Spring Training Yet?

Fact: I love baseball.  Shocker, I know.

Maybe a little too often, when you ask me what I’m thinking about when I’m staring into space, my response will be “baseball.”  There’s a baseball sitting on my desk.  I know too many stats and dates for my own good.  And I always have some sort of baseball related item on me.  Always.

Most people know these things.

What they don’t know is why, beyond being raised around the game.  What they don’t know is that over the years, baseball has become my escape, my sanctuary.

To me, baseball is so much more than “just a game.”  It’s more than home runs and no-hitters.  It’s more than the sound of the ball hitting leather.  It’s more than the sound of the ball smashing into the Green Monster.  It’s more than the smell of freshly cut grass, hot dogs, and beer.

It’s camaraderie.  It’s rivalry.  It’s every emotion known to man.

The game is the one thing that makes sense to me when nothing else does.

So when the start of Spring Training rolls around in the middle of February, right at the time of year my heart aches more than usual, there is nothing more therapeutic than seeing the guys back on the field, knowing that the slate is clean and the hopes are high.  Another chance is on the horizon.

After all, isn’t that what we all want–just one more chance? (And if it ends up being 86 more chances, then so be it.)

 

You can blame my brother for this one

A text message conversation between my brother and I a few months ago:

Him: Chimpanzee riding on a segway
Me: What?
Him: You know
Me: No…wtf?
Him: You’re the one who showed it to me
Me: I don’t even know what you’re talking about
Him: You do

And that’s when I gave up.  It wasn’t until I got home several hours later that I found out he was referring to this:

For the record, it took me another 2 hours to convince him that I was not responsible for introducing this (and a string of other videos) into his life.

(I am, however, potentially responsible for introducing it into yours. Sorry.

Kind of.)

 

Here. We. Go.

I have been fighting some sort of chronic pain since I was…7 years old. (um….wow.)

I don’t remember how a body without pain feels.  And no one has ever been able to give me an explanation.

I was first taken to the doctor  for migraines.  The doctors told my parents that their 2nd grader was incredibly stressed.  That is the closest I have ever come to a legitimate explanation.

By the time I graduated high school, my knees, back, shoulders and neck were all added to the list of problem areas.

I learned how to function despite my pain.  I learned which sitting positions are harmful.  I learned how long I could walk before I should take a break.  I bought a more comfortable backpack.  I stopped carrying a purse when possible to avoid aggravating my shoulder.  I learned to always have a variety of medications (and lots of it) on me.

The pain that developed this past summer though…well, it was different.  Fatigue and weakness were suddenly added to the mix.  I couldn’t manage anymore.  Nothing worked.  Not even a little bit.  Some days, my legs would be exhausted after simply getting up to turn off my alarm.  I found myself canceling plans.  My weekends were now spent on the couch.

Towards the end of last year, it became too much.  I finally emailed my doctor, who ordered a complete blood panel.

After a long week of searching WedMD for what various tests measured (and suffering from quite the case of cyberchondria), I was told that I have a Vitamin D deficiency, which may have caused the problem.

Nine weeks of treatment later, there had been minimal relief, so I emailed my doctor once again.  More blood tests.

The deficiency is gone.  Everything else is basically normal…nothing showed up that would explain my symptoms.

So this morning, at long last, I start the journey of discovering what has been plaguing me.  It begins with a trip to the neurologist…and hopefully ends with the restoration of my faith in the diagnostic process.

 

I have myself a bit of an obsession.

In New York, the first show we saw was Next to Normal.  It’s the story of a family torn apart by bipolar disorder, which the mother struggles with following the death of her 18 month old son.  As soon as a friend of mine said “bipolar disorder” when describing the show to me, I was all in (I have a fascination with that disorder in particular.  But that’s a post for another day).

Simply put, the show was all kinds of amazing.

And I have become a little obsessed with the soundtrack since I got home.

For 3 weeks now, it’s the only thing I have listened to.  Every now and then, I think I’m ready to move on to my other new music options…but I am quickly proven wrong.  Over the last 3 weeks, all but one of my facebook statuses have come from the show.

But it’s just a small obsession.

Without further adieu, here’s a clip from one of my favorite scenes.  Context: Diana, the mother, has just experienced her first delusional episode after deciding to stop taking her meds.  A fight between her and her husband, Dan, follows while Gabe, a creation of Diana’s mind, begs for the attention of his father.

 

Then what?

By the time April comes around, my undergraduate status will read “Senior.”  I’ll have a mere four quarters left before graduation.  Four. Then what?

I still have no idea what career path I want to take when all is said and done.  Over the last three years, I’ve gone back and forth between going as far as the education system will let me and finding something I can do immediately after earning my BA.

Right now, I’m somewhere in between.   I decided about a year ago that I wanted to take a year off from school after graduation.  Part of me doesn’t want to go to grad school at all.  But I know that it’s likely necessary and I should do it before my “real life” really starts.  Whatever that means.

The general plan was to spend my year off working to build my resume, either by doing research or participating in an internship.  But I’ve started to think that what I really want to do during that time is live somewhere brand new.  The making a living part doesn’t even matter that much to me.  I crave the experience of living somewhere else.  I crave the experience of, for the first time in my life, not having the next day, much less the next year, planned out for me.

My mind has wandered to numerous possible destinations–from something as close as still within the same time zone to something as far away as the opposite side of the world.  (Interestingly, Boston is not one of the destinations I have in mind.  I don’t feel like that season of my life is upon me yet.)

Who knows, maybe this is just another idea that isn’t actually a right fit.  But maybe, just maybe, it is.

And I have just over a year to get up the courage to jump head first into whatever is in store for me.

 

Mmmhmm.

 

My Favorite Hour

For the last three years, one of my favorite parts of the week has been driving from home to school on Sunday night.  Despite having the luxury of having a private room at school, it’s the one time I consider to be my “alone time.”  I don’t generally take phone calls.  I don’t check text messages, email, or twitter.

I have roughly one hour to sing at the top of my lungs…roughly one hour to process whatever it is that needs to be processed at the time.

Some weeks, it’s simply processing whatever it is that happened during the weekend.  Other weeks, it’s getting myself ready for a whirlwind of deadlines.  In the middle of the quarter, it’s attempting to quickly move beyond the heartache of whatever test result I just received.  And sometimes, it’s dealing with the overwhelming exhaustion that occasionally sneaks up on me from calling two places “home.”

No matter what it is, there are two parts of my drive that calm me like nothing else can:

• As I cross the county line, approaching the toll roads that signal the home stretch of my journey, I look up to see a cross shining on an otherwise pitch black hill.  Even at times when I’m struggling deeply with my faith, there’s a light in the dark.  There’s a weekly reminder of strength; a weekly reminder of infinite grace.
• 20 minutes later, just after turning onto Campus Drive, there’s a wildlife reserve that serves as the northern border to campus.  After the sun sets, the marine layer settles in, forming some of the most beautiful fog I have ever seen.  The smell of salt water permeates my car, signaling most of my senses that I have made it.  I have made it to my sanctuary.

Regardless of how I am feeling when I leave home any given week, as these two personal landmarks seep into my soul, there’s no place I would rather be.