Open your eyes

A story starts off like this: The other day I went to a party. I saw some friends and made a few new ones. I drink quite a bit. I stayed up way past my bedtime. I had the best time. Now I know reading that it doesn't really sound like much, but believe me it was a life altering experience. Filled with so many laughs and some of the best conversations. And really nothing to crazy or over the top happened on this night, but somehow I know that a couple of years down the road I look back on this night and remember it to be something special. When the night was all said and done I went to sleep, and something magical happened.

I dreamt that I went in Yankee stadium. I was standing on the mound in uniform getting ready to pitch, and the crazy thing is that I don't remember anybody else being out there. I know that in my dream I pitched a full game, but the people that were out there playing with me were really kind of irrelivent. It wasn't so much the people that really matter as it was the sounds and smells. The sound of the popping of the mit when the ball lands right in the sweet spot of the pocket. The smell of pine tar and the grass right when you run out on the field for the first time. The sound of the ball coming off of the bat, and all the baseball chatter that goes on throughout a game. It was one of the best and worst dreams that I've ever had. Because when I woke up I realize just how much I love and miss that game. How much I miss the little things that only a baseball player could miss. And then I started to look back on my college career.

It seemed to be a career filled with great highs and great lows, and in the end it was somewhat disappointing. In total my college pitching career was all of 14 innings, and one almost start that was called off because of rain. And I can't help but think about that almost start that I had and if things would have been different if I would have gotten it? I remember that day like it was yesterday. We had traveled to Missouri to play a team. It was such a long bus ride and it felt like everyone just wanted to get the game over with as fast as we could. I didn't know I was going to get the start that day, not until I strapped on my cleats to go warm up. The coach said, "Ponder, you're on the bump today." I thought I was going to pass out right there. All the guys were excited that I was going to be pitching, and I have never been more nervous in my entire life. Halfway through warming up the clouds started to get dark, by the time I went to the bullpen to finish my warm up it had started to rain. And boy did it rain. It seemed like it rained for hours, and after a while the coaches called off the game. We ended up driving back home that day and we all got the weekend off.

I remember at the time that it happened I was so relieved. I was so nervous and so afraid of going out there and sucking that I was relieved that the game got rained out thinking to myself that next time I wouldn't be so nervous. But there never was a next time. The only opportunity I got to start a game in college got rained out, and I was happy. I never told anyone this of course, but I was. I know that not one person will remember that rain out, but I remember it like it happened to me yesterday. Now I've loved and played baseball almost for as long as I've been alive, and that's the one memory I wish I can take back. I always thought that I'd get another shot at it, but I didn't. There is a quote that I heard in a movie and as soon as it was spoken I began to cry. It is this. "In life you get many chances, in baseball you get one." I feel like I have felt the entire weight of that quote.

I realize that this is the world's longest blog and that some will have probably already stopped reading, but I went through all of that to say this little bit. I have this theory on life, it goes like this. Eventually we are going to get older, and eventually we are going to die. So when we get down into that older stage of our lives we should make sure that we have as few regrets as possible. I want to look at the people and the things around me with the wonderment as if I am talking to or looking at them for the very first time, and also as if it could be the last time. I want to soak in every word of every conversation and just let it marinate in my soul, much like the conversations of the party from just the other day. I think that living like this is the only true way to honor yourself, and all those around you that you hold so dear.