B is for…

B is for Becca and baseball, though the former would likely prefer not to be included in any sentence with the latter.

Becca comes with another B, Best Friend. Sometimes people walk into your life at precisely the moment you need them most. As 2011 drew to a close, I was slowly spiraling into darkness. Through fairly random chance, I encountered a being of light. Perhaps we needed each other at the time, but I believe that should I live half a century more, I can never give back to her what she gave to me in a few short months while my marriage dissolved and life became a mere shadow of what I had known. I can’t see how I’ve been worthy of such patience as she’s continued to give me, but one of many things she has taught me is the value of simple gratitude. Many of you may have been directed here from her Best Blog in the Universe, Lady or Not… Here I Come!, but if you’ve paid her a visit, stop denying yourself now!

B is also for Baseball, which began its new season yesterday. I enjoy most major sports, but baseball holds a transcendent place in my heart. Perhaps it was growing up with my Dad watching the Braves back when they were on TBS every night because Ted Turner owned them. I was 16 when they reversed years of being a laughingstock of the National League in ultimately losing one of the most epic World Series against the Twins. Four years later, I was 20 when they finally brought the first championship of any sport to my native Atlanta, and continued on to a decade of brilliance beyond that. In 2002 I moved to Colorado and began to follow the moribund Rockies, whose greatest appeal to me at the time was their black-and-purple color scheme. Then came a historic run from mid-September to late October in 2007, when the little team that could reeled off victories in 21 of 22 games to reach the World Series.

At the time, I was early in my second year of teaching. I was an English major, and had always planned on being an English teacher, but I was hired to teach both language arts and social studies in my first job; apparently I wasn’t quite good enough, because for my second year, I was moved to being exclusively a social studies teacher. I was out of my depth and far out of my comfort zone. I stumbled through every day. First period was my planning hour that year, and I remember frantically pulling a semblance of a lesson together minutes beforehand, and mornings where I locked myself in a staff bathroom for a quarter hour or more, simply staring in the mirror and wondering how the hell I was ever going to do this. Silly as it sounds, the astounding success of the Rockies that fall, the remarkable run that no one could believe, motivated and inspired me to believe that such unexpected glory lied within myself as well.

There’s so much more I could say on both these subjects, but I will close with one finally B: Believe. For what this incredible person and beloved game have in common is that they both, in their very different but both invaluable ways, made me Believe; Believe in myself and Believe in possibilities beyond.