Curve Ball

Sometimes life just throws you a curve ball.

I mean, you've completed spring training.  You worked your butt off at all the practices and pre-season games.  You played well in the season opener.  Your batting average is climbing.  You're learning how to see what might be coming from the pitchers a bit earlier.  You don't have all of the pitches figured out, but feel like you can stand in the batters box and take a swing with confidence. Even when the count is full, you have faith in all of the hours of batting practice.  You believe you'll make it on base. And then low and behold, the biggest curve ball of curve balls comes at you.

Three strikes.  You're out.

What I'm learning in life is that there are times when it doesn't matter how much you've practiced, prepared, studied, worked, struggled, and fought, you get thrown a curve ball and find yourself turning slowly and dragging your feet back to the dugout.

So here I sit, head in my hands, trying to figure out if there was something else I could have done, or some way I could have better anticipated the pitch.  Wishing I could call for a "do-over."  Wondering if I'd practiced a bit longer or worked a bit harder maybe I'd have made contact with that pitch.

But that game is over.  That pitch has been thrown. The bat has been silently swung. The call has been made. The out has been recorded.

Now what?

Now I'm going to sit with the silence and breathe.

Now I'm going to take time to take time.

I'm going to hug my kids and pay attention to how much taller they may be since the last hug.

I'm going to hear to the music playing in the background.

I'm going to watch spring slowly return.

I'm going to live, and love, and laugh, and learn.

Will I see the next curve ball when it's thrown?  Maybe so, maybe not.  Will I hit one out of the park or will I find myself once again sitting silently in the dugout?

Who knows?

If I'm triumphantly jogging the bases, head held high, watching the ball soar over the outfield wall, I'll enjoy that moment.  If I'm quietly returning to the dugout I hope  I will have learned how to be present in that moment too.

Four months into the "growing out" process!  :)

As for the 'going gray' process, I'm now four months in.  This is a shot of me sitting here as I finish up this blog entry.  I have not done a thing to my hair today aside from pull it back into a scrunchie.  Just thought I'd share a shot so you could see amount of gray that has grown in.

I'm still very much enjoying the process of returning to my authentic hair color.  There are moments when I think I'll cut off all of the colored hair and just try a short style so it's at least all one color.  Then I have a good curl day and I decide I like my curls too much to chop them all off.  I go back and forth.

I think I'll get some length trimmed off soon, just because.  Maybe I'll be in a courageous mood that day and just take more and more off.  We'll see.  :)