by Mikalyn

Created on: December 29, 2008

Chapter 1. Smack! You're alive!

As I think back to the first memory I can conjure, there are so many fuzzy indistinct pictures, sounds and feelings. Then there is a memory that is clear and piercing and as I look at it in my memory projector I can see that it is when I truly became aware of my living being. Smack! It's like it hit me in the face, guess what your alive and the things you do affect other people who are also living here, on this rock, with you.

We were on the freshly chalked softball diamond at my future middle schoolMead Jr. High and we were having a practice. My feelings were less than concerned. I didn't care about the games to come I was there to goof off and have some fun with my closest friend, Lynzi. Lynzi and I were the best we had been the best since the beginning and nothing was going to change in our eyes. Why practice?
You've got us on the team; all you have to do is play and we'll win. I suppose that was easier for me than the rest of the team since my father and sister coached us, but that didn't stop the others from eventually voicing themselves.

The rest of the team wasn't as enthused by our careless attitudes. We were good, we had potential to be better but fact was that we were getting older and Jr. High softball wasn't going to be like grade school. Particularly I remember the better athletes; Angela, Karlie, Ashley and their determined faces as they rounded on us. We were in the outfield laughing and playing with the grass and suddenly the entire infield was on to us. Lynzi and I looked at eachother, had we missed a pop fly?

"You guys have to be serious; how will you get any better if your out here doing...whatever" the bravest of them spoke with irritated jazz hands. The 'whatever' that they spoke of was of great important to Lynzi and I who were in the middle of composing our own rendition of the national anthem which we had dubbed "The Homely Cows Come Home." Don't ask.

"Why are you even here, its not like we want you here and we don't want your dumb dad here either!"said the slightly chubby, hawaiian third baseman.

"Yeah!" they all agreed in their eleven year old voices. The jury was in, this was no longer our team and we were no longer the best.

"Fine!" said lynzi throwing her worn leather mit on the ground. The mit we had spent quite some time breaking in by driving my mothers front tire over it again and again. "I don't care about your stupid team,"

"Yeah, you can all go f* yourselves." I remember it, I said the f' word for the first time in anger. It sure shut them up.

My dad and my sister watched us from home plate. The next thing I know Lynzi and I are walking off the field together heading for the restaurant just down the road and eventually my house since it was only a mile away. My sister ran after us yelling at me

"Michaelyn, you'd better be back!" We just started running, running from our responsibilites; running from the awkward accusations and the heated emotions. Who knows, maybe we were just running for our freedom. I don't know if it was finally telling those girls to f* themselves and the stunned look on their faces or running out on my dad and my team that smacked me into conscious existence but it seems that I remember things more clearly from this point on.

We did play the rest of the season after all we had an obligation to our team though I cant say we acted with as much savvy after that...and I cant remember how many games we won. I continued a few more years with softball and I remember the day I truly quit, it went something like this one.

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