Gradr Journal Entry #4

“All that I wanted were things I had before.
All that I needed I never needed more.
All of my questions are answers to my sins.
All of my endings are waiting to begin.”

From Circle by Slipknot


February 19th, 2010

I think we’re going to sign up my oldest son for flag football. This will be his first organized sport. I don’t know if he’ll like baseball as much as I did when I was a kid. Of course, watching baseball today is not the same as it was growing up, either. There was just something about watching the Cubs and listening to Harry Carey. Baseball is just not the same anymore.

I’m actually surprised I didn’t ever try out for football. I’m not sure, exactly, why I didn’t. I guess maybe it’s part of that whole ‘I’d be in a different place now and not aligned with my destiny’ thing. You think about it—if I had played football in junior high, maybe have run in with the wrong crowd and maybe I would have had more confidence and gotten better grades. And if all of that happened, I might have never moved to North Carolina. Then again, if I had stayed in Colorado, there is a certain scenario that could have played out very, very badly. I am slowly beginning to learn not to question God’s plans—why things happen the way they do.

I can’t wait to see my son get his first touchdown. It’s going to be unreal, the joy I will feel. I can imagine it rivaling the birth of my youngest. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it will come close, I think.

I think I remember hitting a homerun in tee-ball, but outside of that one season, I’ve never hit one. I played soccer for three or four years but I was always goalie or a defensive player. I never scored a goal. I had one shot on goal, but I missed. I played basketball for one season in junior high. Mr. Microsoft was on that team, too. I never had the opportunity to make a play.

I played softball a couple seasons ten years ago and there are two plays that stick out in my mind. The first one, I hit a line drive into the outfield. I was rounding second when the throw came. I slid into third as the third baseman caught the ball. He missed the tag but he was between me and the base. A huge cloud of dust engulfed us both. I reached my hand over and touched the bag before he tagged me and I had myself a triple. The second memory, I was playing shortstop and snatched a speeding line drive out of the air like I was catching a fly with chopsticks. My nickname even before that was Obi-Wan Kennobi. Get it? Anyway, I felt like a jedi that day. But seeing my son run towards the endzone with a football in his hand will have me more happy than I was either of those two days. Now, you might mistakenly believe that I’m living vicariously through my children, You’d be wrong. I want my kids to be successful in whatever they choose to do. And seeing them succeed is going to make more happy than I could ever be succeeding myself.