21...?

I'm turning 21 on Saturday.

Whaaaat? When did I get this old? I texted several of my friends the other day telling them I couldn't believe I was already turning 21. "How is this happening already!?" I said. One of my friends simply responded, "Because time."

Yes, because time. One day at a time, one week at a time, one year at a time. If you'd asked me at age ten where I thought I was going to be when I was 21, I certainly wouldn't have said England and Kentucky.

In just over a month, I'll be leaving home to fly to London for my internship at the olympics. I'm really excited. Then I'll be back in Kentucky in August to start my new job and my last year of college, my senior year.

The last three years have been such an adventure. If I could have planned them out, I never would have planned them that way, but guess what? It's been even better than anything I could have come up with.

I guess I'm okay with turning 21, though I've decided that's old enough. So as of right now, I don't plan on turning 22 next year, but who knows. Maybe by then I'll change my mind.

Until I was in high school, I wanted to live in Pennsylvania. In high school, I wanted to live in California. Last year I thought about New York, and now I'm considering Tennessee. Let's be real. I just want to live everywhere. Can I have one of those awesome travel jobs for a few years and see the world?

It doesn't have to be that, though, as long as it's an adventure.

Three Life Lessons I Learned From Soccer

1. L.I.G.

My soccer coach was a little obsessed with acronyms, and he liked to make up his own. This one meant Let It Go. He probably sounded crazy pacing up and down the field yelling, "Lig! LIG!" to one player or another when she made a mistake on the field. He told us time and again that we were all going to make mistakes, but if we kicked ourselves and dwelled on it and let it get to us, we were going to waste time and allow our opponents to get the best of us. "Just let it go," coach would say. This isn't to say we shouldn't try to learn from our mistakes. But we definitely should not wallow in them, punish ourselves for them, or allow them to distract us from the important work we have ahead of us.




2. If you're not dead tired after every game, you didn't do your job.

I was a midfielder for most of the time I played soccer, so generally I spent 90 minutes running up and down the field without really stopping. It was an art trying to conserve energy throughout the game so I didn't run out before the end of the game, but I also didn't want to get to the end of the game and still feel like I could run a few more miles. I feel like it's the same way with just about everything in life. When it comes to school, I don't want to work so hard that I literally never sleep or do anything except study (which I've done from time to time), but I don't want to get to the end of a class and realize I haven't learned anything or given it my best shot. In fact, my goal is to never come to the end of a day and realize I could have done better.



3. Failure can be a wonderful thing.

I first went to school in seventh grade, and I played on the junior high soccer team. I played on that team in eighth grade, too, which was fine for the time. But I thought of little else other than playing on the varsity soccer team my freshman year. They had so many games, and they had cool jackets, and they were all really good at soccer. I was obsessed with the idea. The summer before my freshman year, when I had about three months before tryouts, I ran and practiced some to try to get in shape. But I didn't go all out, and I really didn't try as hard as I could have. When tryouts rolled around, not surprisingly, I didn't make the team. I wasn't in shape, and frankly I wasn't good enough.

However, not making the team the first time I tried only increased my resolve. I played on the junior varsity team instead and worked double hard. I played indoor all year long. And then that summer for the three months before tryouts before my sophomore year, I practiced every single day. I ran miles, did sit-ups and pushups, sprinted, practiced shooting, dribbling, passing—and anything else I could think of.

When tryouts rolled around, I made the varsity team. Not only did I reach my goal by making the team, but I also became a much better soccer player than I ever would have if I had made the team my freshman year. There's no way I would have worked that hard that summer if I hadn't failed once. And after that, I realized what a privilege it was to be on the team, so I ran until I could run no more, practiced until I could practice no more, and played each game as if it were my last. I learned an important lesson:

Failure isn't the end of a chapter. It's the beginning of a new one.

Cold Blooded Murder Part 2

We all have to face our fears eventually. Some day there will be no one to help you, no one to hear you scream. You're just going to have to survive on your own.

In this post, I discussed my three month long battle against one of the most disgusting and formidable creatures I have ever encountered: a huge, impossibly speedy, leg-flailing beast known as a centipede. It stalked me for 12 weeks, jumping out from nowhere and scaring me out of my wits. I hunted it, watched for it, and even tried to poison it, but even if I had found it, I probably would have been too scared to kill it, which is why my roommate did, finally. She's my hero.

Some time after this ordeal, I got to thinking. What if someday I was home alone and encountered one of these horrific creatures on my own? I would probably keel over and die. I hoped that would never happen.

I went to live my sister after I finished school, and she neglected to tell me something very important that I discovered one dark night a few days ago. I came home from working on a film shoot (I'll probably talk about that in another post) late at night after a Sonic run, and Katie wasn't home yet. So I pulled off my shoes and socks and headed into the kitchen to get some water.

Just as I was reaching for the fridge door, what did I see? I saw a huge, black, many-legged miscreant speeding across the floor. Before I could scream, throw up, or even move, it had passed my feet by just inches, its nasty legs flailing.

IT ALMOST RAN ACROSS MY BARE FEET.

I was in too much shock to scream. The last two times I've seen a centipede, I've made one my friends kill it. But now I was the only one here. I was alone.

My sister had neglected to tell me that she'd seen this beast weeks ago, and it had been in the house ever since!

How could I just go back into the living room, knowing that awful thing was skulking around my house? The answer is that I couldn't. There was no way in God's green earth that this apartment was big enough for me and that THING.

I ran to put on some shoes and came cautiously back into the kitchen. It was hesitating halfway across the floor, so I threw a rug at it, jumping atop it and hoping to crush it underneath.

No such luck! The centipede sped from beneath the rug and headed for the closet. Good gosh NO! NOT THE CLOSET! There were so many bags and boxes and clothes in there that I'd NEVER find it! I grabbed an empty box of oatmeal and, hands shaking, approached the evil creature.

Instead of going in the closet, it sped under a shelving unit that held the toaster and some sodas. I knew it was there. I knew it was still. I knew it was right next to the entrance to the closet. I knew this was my last chance.

I grabbed the shelving unit and violently pulled it away from the wall. There it was! In a panic, the centipede spun in a circle and tried to take off toward the closet. With a shriek of horror, I plunged the empty box onto the writhing miscreant and saw its legs explode in every direction, still twitching with latent life.

IT WAS DEAD! I had hunted and killed my very first centipede!

I felt like there were things crawling all over me. I ran to the living room, jumping and twitching spastically, while throwing off my shoes and jacket and checking myself for other crawling specimens.

I left the decimated carcass for my sister to dispose of, but not before spraying the house with Raid.

A PSA to all centipedes within a ten mile radius: "You have been weighed, and you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. I have a special set of skills... and a weapon called never-ending-supply-of-oatmeal boxes. Your days are numbered, and this town ain't big enough for the both of us."