Bathroom Reading Material Turns Melodramatic and Nostalgic...

I was taking a gander at the baseball equipment magazine I get once in a while in the mail while I was on the throne and I kept thinking to myself how I wish I could go backt to high school sometimes just to play ball again for that school. Those were the greatest times. No. We were not very good (except for 2002 - our best team) but I was playing high school baseball - something taken very seriously in many states not named Illinois. I even played college ball and despite - at the time - hating every minute of it, I still wish I could relive it. 2005? I 'played' ball with some guys on a woodbat league team that only won 3 games. The last time I put on my cleats and stepped on a field. Even the pain of a destroyed shoulder couldn't keep the smell of leather and dirt and grass from making me smile.

I can't really afford to try to play again with my schedule, but I am trying anyway this summer. It (once again) hit me in the can that I am nearly 22. This is the age when half of the athletes in the U.S. give up their sport and go onto their careers while the other half hang onto the dream a few years longer and only a percent or two of that half ever even make it after that. I lost three years to bad decisions and torn ligaments and other various oh-so-precious tissues that make or break aspiring athletes at this age.

I will obviously never make... I can't even say it, that's how much baseball still means to me. I never was given the closure that obsessed people like me need. I have beaten this subject to a pulp on this damn blog and I know it has gotten dreadfully long in the tooth, but... I guess that's what it means to be dedicated to a singular dream... Or obsessed.

I suppose what I mean is that I need to wake up in 4 hours to get to work on time. I need a release.

Now Playing: 2 Many DJ's - "Independent Women, Pt. 1 / Dreadlock Holiday"

Three Years...

Wow. I have been on this thing for three years now. The evolution is... incredible.

Anyway, just got home from Derrick's crib. We watched a movie and the played some CounterStrike. Fun times. TOMORROW IS THE SUPER BOWL!!! I'll be partying it up over @ Derrick's again in 12 hours. Vicky will actually be in attendance! I'll hold off on announcing my predictions until tomorrow (don't want to jinx the BEARS).

But, hey... Seriously now, THREE YEARS?! It has been that long since I started this thing. Had they even INVENTED the internet that long ago?! I didn't even have a cell phone yet. My laptop was two years away. My car was still relatively (13 years) new! Steve, Derrick, Blaszczyk, etc... were not anywhere close to being a part of my life. My three only friends at that time are people I have not actually spoken to at this moment in nearly six months. My shoulder was still on it's first labrum/rotator cuff and my brain was on it's first college. The Cubs were about to start their only pre-season-favorites-predicted season in my lifetime.

I'm sorry. I don't care how depressing it is to keep this damn blog around for me to read from time to time, realizing how different things are makes me so happy. To have this reminder of how far I and all those around me have come is truly a blessing. Even if I have to sit through the melo-dramatic ravings of a young mind teetering on the brink of breakdown, I still can step back and realize how much an actual lifetime is.

...

I guess what I'm saying is that it is -6° outside and right now my house is as far away from the sun as it's going to get. And unlike three years ago, I now take this for what it is, not a metaphor for my life but a scientific fact that has so little to do with me and even less to do with how others treat me.

Now Playing: µ-ziq - "The Fall of Antioch"