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

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