I woke up at 4:13 a.m. Thursday morning, 17 minutes earlier than I normally wake up each day and I said to myself, "In ten years, I will be 31 years old. Ten Years! 12 short years ago, my younger brother was born, that seems like just yesterday. So you're telling me that in 10 EVEN shorter years, I will be above the age of 30....30, say it with me thirtyyyyyyyy!"
Why did I ever believe that I would be young forever? Why would anyone get fooled into believing that? It's not possible. I love who I am right now, I'm young, I'm happy, I'm fun, and I'm still a natural blonde which I hear changes the older you get. So that is when it hit me, why rush my life away? Why not go back to school after graduation next year and get my doctoral degree? Why not visit every MLB stadium on the East coast? Why not travel to Denmark one day and experience culture somewhere else? Why not do all of these things that I have always wanted to do?
Well, I will tell you why...because I put my life on hold for people, boys in particular! I came to Francis Marion following a boy, I stayed at Francis Marion an extra year waiting on a boy, I decided that I would follow a baseball player all over the country instead of pursuing my dreams to be something important one day, to be someone great, to change things and people, or at least try to change things and people. I have continuously put my dreams and goals on hold because I have been exposed all my life to the idea that you go to school, you go to college, you graduate, you get married, you get a job, and you have kids.
I have spent my entire life trying to please everyone around me. I have tried to do what everyone else wants me to do instead of doing what I want to do. I have followed guys that I thought I would spend forever with just to find out that my idea of success is unlike most other Southern women. My idea of success is not finding a husband, getting a huge engagement ring, planning the perfect wedding, being a housewife, having two perfect chidlren, and then transforming into a housemom. My idea of success has to do with being someone, being known! I want to go to school and make something of myself. I want to travel and drink beer while watching sporting events. I want to be myself before I am locked into being someone else's forever. Why is that so bad? Why does that make my mom's "nerves in knots" as she told me today.
I think I'm going to make a great wife and mother one day, one day when I'm ready, one day when I can look at my kids and tell them everything that I accomplished and motivate them to do the same. I want to experience bright lights and big cities. I want to disappear to Raleigh on the weekends and pretty much only recall my friend Chris walking down the main street asking everyone we passed to give him a hug. I want to run marathons and teach fitness classes. I want to look what little bit of muscle I have on my body in the mirror every day instead of worrying about stretch marks and cellulite. I want all of these things while I am still young and can do it. I want to serve the Lord through my accomplishments. I want to pick up and go on missions trips thousands of miles away without having to miss my husband or my kids.
So I am challenging myself.... from this day forward, I will do big things. I will have fun. I will be young. I will take pure and full advantage of the one life I have to live. And then, for my mom and brother's comfortability, when I am ready and I feel it, I will be a wife and a mom but until then, I will love the Lord, and I will love my life because we only get one shot at it. It's not like baseball, you don't have nine innings to bring in runs, you have ONE, that's all. You have to go big or go home.
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." Jeremiah 17:9-10
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
When on the mound...do as a pitcher does!
My mom laughed tonight when I was on the phone with her while in Target and I said,"It must be nice to have a significant other..." She responded,"Silly girl, you have one of the best significant others I know." She's right, I do. We actually booked our hotel for Dallas just today for our trip! So super exciting since we will be staying in Hyatt Place at the Reunion Tower which overlooks the city! The reason I made the comment about "having a significant other" is because my life is unlike most people's lives. Being the girlfriend of someone who is gone from late February until late September, can help you to see what you're made of.
I have always said that a pitcher has one of the most difficult positions there is. In every sport, you should play as a team but when a pitcher is on the mound, he has to be somewhat independent and count on himself! A baseball game can ultimately fall on how well a pitcher throws. Josh is a pitcher, left-handed, throwing low to mid nineties right now. I love to read his stats and see how well he is doing but I HATE watching him throw or listening to the games...it stresses me out to the absolute max! But I respect Josh so much because he works so hard to be where he is and he knows that he has a lot of burden to bear when he's standing on the mound.
I opened with "when on the mound...do as a pitcher does." The reasoning for this is because, when most girls could ask their better half, for lack of a better term, to run to the store with them or come over and help them get the groceries out of the car, realistically, I can not do that. So, as hard as it can be at times, I have had to learn what it's like to "not have a significant other." I have learned how much I can carry at once, I have learned that customer service at the cable company is the perfect fix to my electronic illiteracy (and they have learned that a girl without her boyfriend, who knows nothing about electronics can be emotional annd needy), I have also learned just the right amount of food to cook to feed one person, I have learned that I must set out extra time every day to take care of the dog because I'm the only one here to do so....I have learned so many things about how to carry the weight of it just being me here and him being, what feels like, millions of miles away. So quick preview of my night: here's a picture of my first trip up the stairs after going to Target and a picture of the, not one, not two, but THREE flights of stairs that I have to lug all of these things up!
Long story short: Josh's team will be playing in the Florida State League Championship so looks like my learning experiences will last a tad bit longer! Did I ever mention that I love baseball and I love the New York Mets?!?! haha awful, beautiful life! :)
"A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly" Proverbs 14:29
I have always said that a pitcher has one of the most difficult positions there is. In every sport, you should play as a team but when a pitcher is on the mound, he has to be somewhat independent and count on himself! A baseball game can ultimately fall on how well a pitcher throws. Josh is a pitcher, left-handed, throwing low to mid nineties right now. I love to read his stats and see how well he is doing but I HATE watching him throw or listening to the games...it stresses me out to the absolute max! But I respect Josh so much because he works so hard to be where he is and he knows that he has a lot of burden to bear when he's standing on the mound.
I opened with "when on the mound...do as a pitcher does." The reasoning for this is because, when most girls could ask their better half, for lack of a better term, to run to the store with them or come over and help them get the groceries out of the car, realistically, I can not do that. So, as hard as it can be at times, I have had to learn what it's like to "not have a significant other." I have learned how much I can carry at once, I have learned that customer service at the cable company is the perfect fix to my electronic illiteracy (and they have learned that a girl without her boyfriend, who knows nothing about electronics can be emotional annd needy), I have also learned just the right amount of food to cook to feed one person, I have learned that I must set out extra time every day to take care of the dog because I'm the only one here to do so....I have learned so many things about how to carry the weight of it just being me here and him being, what feels like, millions of miles away. So quick preview of my night: here's a picture of my first trip up the stairs after going to Target and a picture of the, not one, not two, but THREE flights of stairs that I have to lug all of these things up!
"A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly" Proverbs 14:29
Monday, September 5, 2011
Perfecting Our Swing
One thing I find truly amazing is the fact that you honestly do learn new things every day if you open up to learning new things.... for example, I learned just this past week that my "perfect" relationship isn't so perfect after all. I met Joshua in January of 2009. Since that day, we have not had so much as a harsh tone of voice with one another. Last week, we had more than a harsh tone of voice, we had our first solid fight. Picture this for a minute: a batter comes up to the plate, pitcher throws the ball, wild pitch hits the batter, batter shrugs it off and goes on to take his base. Scenario number 2: batter comes up to the plate, pitcher hits batter with ball, batter hits the grounds, after some mild examination from the athletic trainer, batter then takes his base. Scenario number 3, which in fact is the most relevant here: batter comes up to the plate, pitcher hits batter.....batter charges the mound! Yep, it was that serious!!
Let me briefly sum up my life for you: I wake up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to get to the gym by 5:30 a.m.to work out, I then go to class until late afternoon, then I head back to the gym to teach my fitness classes, I go home, eat some dinner, do some housework, do some studying, listen to Josh's game, and I wait...and I wait....and I wait for nine innings of baseball to slowly wrap up so that I can hear his sweet voice for a short 30 minutes to an hour each night. This process ends at about midnight every night where I then fall asleep and wake up each morning to start it all over again. It's tough. Who am I kidding, it sometimes feels impossible!! I miss him.... I miss the days in college where I saw him at least three days a week, I miss the days where he worked for my dad and I saw him almost seven days a week. I just miss him.
Now, let me briefly describe Josh's days: Josh wakes up, cooks him some breakfast, shoots me a few texts to which I respond as often as I can, wonders what I'm doing, if I'm okay, if I am sad today, what he should expect tonight when we talk after the game, will I be playful tonight or will it be one of those nights where every time he says a word, I start to get emotional..... Josh goes to the field and as soon as his pre-game practice is over he waits outside the clubhouse (because they aren't allowed to talk on their cell phones in the clubhouse) for me to call and us share a two and a half minute briefing of our day, which honestly is just long enough to say,"I miss you, I love you, I'll call you after the game. Have a great night, good luck at the game" so on and so on, you get the point.
To sum it up, this life as a baseball player/a baseball player's significant other can be far more stressful than what people assume. There are many nights full of being beaten up about the distance and Josh saying, "Hey, it's all gonna be okay." There are many nights where we both wonder when it will ever get any easier. So, I guess it had to come eventually....at some point in our lives, the stress and tension of the distance had to wear away on us and cause us to have an argument. It was bad, I didn't know that he or I had it in us but boy oh boy was I wrong. Our little fight lasted a record breaking 45 minutes, it was the most difficult 2700 seconds I have had in the past couple of years.
Last night, Josh must have had it on his mind pretty heavily, so he woke me up at maybe 2:30 a.m. because he needed me to hear him say that he loved me with everything he has in him....whoa, total soul food right there. I needed that so much. God has a huge purpose for my boy. I believe that he will be ministering about his baseball experiences one day and it will change lives. Who know, maybe we will be ministering together about the hardships of long distance. haha. I guess what's so funny about all of this is that Josh and I have always thought we were potentially the perfect couple. Guess what? There is no such thing.... Do we love each other? Absolutely. Do we know that we can make it through all of this? Definitely. Have we learned that we have a great deal of at-bats left before perfecting our swing? I would say so!
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." James 1:12
Let me briefly sum up my life for you: I wake up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to get to the gym by 5:30 a.m.to work out, I then go to class until late afternoon, then I head back to the gym to teach my fitness classes, I go home, eat some dinner, do some housework, do some studying, listen to Josh's game, and I wait...and I wait....and I wait for nine innings of baseball to slowly wrap up so that I can hear his sweet voice for a short 30 minutes to an hour each night. This process ends at about midnight every night where I then fall asleep and wake up each morning to start it all over again. It's tough. Who am I kidding, it sometimes feels impossible!! I miss him.... I miss the days in college where I saw him at least three days a week, I miss the days where he worked for my dad and I saw him almost seven days a week. I just miss him.
Now, let me briefly describe Josh's days: Josh wakes up, cooks him some breakfast, shoots me a few texts to which I respond as often as I can, wonders what I'm doing, if I'm okay, if I am sad today, what he should expect tonight when we talk after the game, will I be playful tonight or will it be one of those nights where every time he says a word, I start to get emotional..... Josh goes to the field and as soon as his pre-game practice is over he waits outside the clubhouse (because they aren't allowed to talk on their cell phones in the clubhouse) for me to call and us share a two and a half minute briefing of our day, which honestly is just long enough to say,"I miss you, I love you, I'll call you after the game. Have a great night, good luck at the game" so on and so on, you get the point.
To sum it up, this life as a baseball player/a baseball player's significant other can be far more stressful than what people assume. There are many nights full of being beaten up about the distance and Josh saying, "Hey, it's all gonna be okay." There are many nights where we both wonder when it will ever get any easier. So, I guess it had to come eventually....at some point in our lives, the stress and tension of the distance had to wear away on us and cause us to have an argument. It was bad, I didn't know that he or I had it in us but boy oh boy was I wrong. Our little fight lasted a record breaking 45 minutes, it was the most difficult 2700 seconds I have had in the past couple of years.
Last night, Josh must have had it on his mind pretty heavily, so he woke me up at maybe 2:30 a.m. because he needed me to hear him say that he loved me with everything he has in him....whoa, total soul food right there. I needed that so much. God has a huge purpose for my boy. I believe that he will be ministering about his baseball experiences one day and it will change lives. Who know, maybe we will be ministering together about the hardships of long distance. haha. I guess what's so funny about all of this is that Josh and I have always thought we were potentially the perfect couple. Guess what? There is no such thing.... Do we love each other? Absolutely. Do we know that we can make it through all of this? Definitely. Have we learned that we have a great deal of at-bats left before perfecting our swing? I would say so!
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." James 1:12
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