February 18, 2008

Part I.

“It’s the beginning of the end for me and some others…”

I am talking about a college athlete’s senior year. When we stepped in as freshmen, senior year seemed so far away, yet here I stand only a quarter away from accepting a diploma that I never thought would come. When my softball team and I met up before school started back in September, February seemed too far away to think about or even consider yet at the time. Yet once again, here I am past the middle of February and already nine games into the end of my collegiate career. Wow! Or Sigh! Or Tear! Or Finally!... the expression does not matter as much as the experiences that have come from my five years at UCR and my four years of playing softball here. When I came into UCR, everything seemed so new to me, but now I am not only the veteran on my team but the oldest at that resting on 22 years old but 23 by the time season is going into playoffs.

Nine games have gone by so fast that already I mix up the games, plays made or missed, signs followed or forgotten, and wins and losses. Although in my sport we embrace over 60 games a season, this time around, each game is weighed heavier for me than ever before.

Let me try to explain why…

There are moments when it hits me that this is the beginning of the end for me and some others, yet often I find myself getting lost in the moment, the day, the week, then the month. It happens that fast and before I knew it, I was already here… in my 2008 Senior softball season. This may sound cliché but this year is different, as I am sure all other years were in their own right, yet this year hands down is different for all the right reasons. The only thing I am ever sure of is that athletics breathes with in me but it has never been guaranteed that I would physically be participating in it. What I mean is, around this time last year, my only goal was to get through the school year, let alone another season, which is what I am embracing right now. I imagine that if at the end of last season I wiped the dirt off my glove for the last time then… and put up my cleats then… I am sure I would have moved on a year too early into the real world that I will soon be facing. I met challenges last year, as I am sure that we all have, but my challenge came to this: Either choose life or get lost in life… I chose softball, and that is life for me, being without it at the time, would have been me lost in life. I am thankful for the decision I made at the end of last season, for without that I would be without the best time of my life that began long before the first of the nine games already played this season.

Kristie