America's Pastime

Even tho' I'm watching football games, my mind isn't in it.  It's a wandering blog posting kind of day.

The past few months have been memorable in many ways.  Most of you know that I live and breath MLB (mostly the Texas RANGERS) from Opening Day, to the close of the season.  This season's run to the World Series was as fantastic as imagined.  The best part of each game was the people that I shared it with - in that most beautiful of all Ballparks.  Cassidy and I were at all of the same games (except that last one, where GREAT friends offered me an extra World Series Ticket!!),  and cheered and cried with those guys.  Of all the memories I tried to make as my children grew up - I believe this one - of "Mom, Baseball, and Ballpark Peanuts"  - my version of that saying - will stand the longest.  (Not that Christmas ornaments are any less important - because heaven knows, I have a tree full of 30 years of memories!)

On three occassions Cassidy and I were able to visit other ballparks this season.  June took us to Yankee Stadium (where we proudly wore Ranger shirts, made some fun Yankee friends, but lost the game), July found us in the Nationals Park, where we missed by 1 day getting to watch "our" Pudge play for the Washington Nationals, and mid September we landed at Turner Field in Atlanta (albeit that's NOT were we were headed!).  When Cassidy and I travel - our mantra has always been "It's an Adventure!"  Boy, our original baseball tickets that morning were in Minneapolis to watch the Twins play in a noon game, but we ended up in Atlanta with a 4:00 Braves game.  Adventure?  Yes, please.

What this says is this:  We make plans in life - sometimes they work out perfectly - sometimes they don't.  The difference is what you do at the end of those plans.  For the past 7 1/2 months, I have been on a different work adventure - changing positions at my place of employment.  I've been blessed to meet new people, work with and for great men and wives, and watch my new boss's family set out on a completely different 'venture - without their wife and mother.   Each person that I see daily confirms that life takes turns - some small, some huge.  The difference in all of these turns is how we face life tomorrow.    There are tears in every instance.  Some are tears of happiness (we witnessed a beautiful bride marry the love of her life yesterday), some are tears of sorrow (when a courageous lady shows how to live life in the face of dying), and some are tears of disbelief (those Rangers allowing another team take a hard fought win away from them).  They are still tears, nonetheless.

The question is - how do I display my daily adventures?  I wish all of my tears were of the first kind, but I'll never apologize for the others.  When friends rejoice, I will cry tears of joy with them:  when friends are hurting, I will cry tears of anguish with those, and the rest of the days - I'll cry at Hallmark and those dog shelter commercials singing "Arms of An Angel".    Or... days without the need for any tears would be just dandy too.

I just hope we won't have those World Series kind of tears next year.  Because as "that" movie once said....
"There is no crying in baseball."