Life Throws More Curve Balls

It's time for another basketball life lesson, Readers.

I'm currently on a basketball fantasy league. We drafted back in October and have been competing against each other all season, and I love it. I've learned so much about all the players, and it has forced me to pay attention to all the games, and not just the Celtics. I get a little stressed when we (the Celtics) play against my players - like on Monday when the Celtics played the Nuggets, and I had two guys on each of those teams. OH! Let me just show you what my team looks like:

Pretty cute, right? I thought a lot about the talent I wanted on my team, and was told that Jokic was going to be my break out star of the year. He has yet to prove himself as such, but my fingers are still crossed. Of course K Love is on my team; I mean... I named my team after him. John Wall terrified me in the playoffs last year, so I knew I needed him. Horford and Capela fill me up with rebounds and assists, Tatum has had the opportunity to give high numbers with Hayward being out for the year, and the rest were fillers. I've been pretty proud of my team. We haven't had the numbers I wanted this year, but we've pushed hard, and I was feeling really good about myself.....which, I know, it's just fantasy; it doesn't really matter. But still.... feeling pretty good.

Until yesterday.

It started off as a bad day. I had to wake up early, because I had a presentation at 8, so I had to get to the office early, and..... I hate waking up early. I’m training for a half marathon right now, so my run from the night before kept me up late, which meant I was even more tired. Right after the presentation the first bit of bad news hit – John Wall, my prized point guard, was injured, going into surgery, and would be out for 6 to 8 weeks. NO. What?! Where did that injury come from?! I spent the rest of the day annoyed that I hadn’t traded him earlier, and wondering what moves I could make to try to make up for this loss.

10 hours later, the other shoe dropped – Kevin Love was injured, and would be out for… you guessed it – 6 to 8 weeks.  

Ok, so, as I mentioned months ago in a blog post, life has a way of throwing curve balls at us. Right when we are getting comfortable, everything gets mixed up. It's just how life works, right? 

HOWEVER

I wasn’t comfortable. I wasn’t sitting in first place, games ahead of everyone, with a million All-Stars sitting on my team. I have worked hard to get my team where it is at, and I was thinking my scrappy underdog team had a fighting chance to take me to the end!

And just like that, the basketball life lesson took shape. As I was walking to my institute class last night, I was talking to my mom and telling her how ridiculously bored I am in my life. Oh, yes, I go to a million parties, I have a bunch of trips lined up over the next few months, I have a really great job, my roommates and I get along so great…. and yet… life just feels flat. I keep filling it with other things – I did the whole temple worker thing, I got certified in data analysis, I go on spontaneous road trips, I graduated from institute, I’ve bought/read a million books, I plan a bunch of ward activities… and yet… still empty. Every time I think I know where life is going, it does something completely different. This past month has been a bunch of highs and lows, as I've been trying to figure out what I want 2018 to look like, and it has stressed me out that I don't have any new ideas. Am I really that boring?! Am I all washed up? Have I passed my prime?! What can I do to try to make my life interesting again?! 

In the midst of me trying to figure out what big adventures I want next, I called a friend from my college days, and we talked about where all our friends are now. It was funny to look at where we had all ended up, and how much had changed in almost 10 years. Of course, going down memory lane brought up a person from my past I don't speak of, ever. She did a lot of damage to me, so it's not usually a topic I bring up, but it came up, and instead of my anxiety triggering, I listened to how completely different our paths had gone. And I was grateful. I was grateful that my life had ended up HERE, and not where her choices have taken her. I was grateful that, although life keeps throwing those curve balls, and although I am single, and although I am not where I was anticipating I would be at this point in my life, I am still HERE, closer to Christ than I ever was, and more confident in the Lord's plan for me than I have ever been. 

Readers, sometimes life throws curve balls when we're at the top of our game, much like I wrote all those months ago. However, I've come to discover that, more often than not, life throws curve balls when we're still reeling from the last curve ball. But.... I've also come to realize that it's these curve balls that shape us the most. It's these curve balls that have allowed me to become who I am today. It's these curve balls that have pushed me to be better, faster, kinder, and more confident in my Savior, and His love for me.

A few months ago a friend posted this quote on Facebook, and I shared it, because it spoke to me:

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.” - Alice Walker

I've been thinking so much lately about how absolutely confusing 2017 was. I thought it was going in a completely different direction than it did. I literally was just winging the entire year. More curve balls kept getting thrown my way, and I kept hitting them however I could, and ended up here. I still have no idea WHY. Why did all those things happen? Why couldn't I have gone down a different path? Why am I still going down this path? When do I get to do something else? I have no idea the answer to these questions. I have no idea what I'm still trying to learn. However, I know that the Lord hasn't abandoned me. I know that even when life throws more curve balls then I'm ready to take on, Christ will be there, always, supporting me, and helping me progress on the path that will lead me to the most happiness. 

So, here's to those curve balls - the injuries, the real life insecurities, and the bad days. As Alice Walker so eloquently stated: "Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed" Let's go life; bring on those curve balls.