I'm 20 years old. Approaching 21 a little faster than I creeped up on 20, realizing that each year picks up a bit more speed than the last year, and pretty soon they'll all be racing by. Already, they're flying by faster than I'd like them too in such a strange way. It seems like so long ago since I came into Stanford as a freshman, another life, a different person. And yet, somehow, it seems just like yesterday. Walking into my freshman dorm room for the first time and meeting my roommate and her father is still a fresh image in my mind. It can't be that long ago. I'll never forget the first time I walked onto a basketball court in front of 7000+ people, the way my heart raced and my blood rushed through my veins. It doesn't seem like that long ago. Not long at all. Strange.
I still feel like that freshman from time to time. Maybe we all do. Maybe it's just me. Who knows. I'm going to be a senior. Only a year left, and boy does that thought scare a person like me, addicted to my youth. What a curse. I've finally come to this point when I'm so excited to be young, and just as I realize this, the world is going to thrust reality into my face and force me to become an adult. It's not fair. I guess all I can do is hold on to the one year I have left, but that's just going to make it hurt worse when it's gone. A damned situation I think.
As for what I'm going to do with the life when the time comes along, I think I'm in so much denial that I really won't know until it gets here, or maybe after it's been here for awhile and some slap in the face forces me to deal with reality. I guess I'll have a lot of options, so I really can't complain. I'll probably graduate with a CS degree, maybe a quarter or two late but mabye not, and someone will want to pay me to go sit in their office and play with their computers all day. Or, with a little luck, someone will offer to pay me to keep throwing a little orange ball through an orange hoop in front of hysterical people who keep screaming at or for me (I can't tell). So life will pretty much be decided for me, as usual, pushing me wherever it decides that I should go, and I'm a pretty mellow person, so I won't fight it by trying to paddle against the current. I'm not that strong anyways. Might as well just go with the flow, as I always do.
2/4/97. It's not bad. Not at all. It's great. This final year is going very well, and no big terrible disaster looms in front of me. I'm not depressed or melancholy or anything even remotely like that. I'm happy. Very happy. I guess I wrote the majority of this in some strange mood, when the little clikcs of time happened to be a bit too loud for my ears. They're passing a lot more quietly now. No worries. That big terrible monster called the future doesn't seem so scary anymore. I guess there are just so many opportunites waiting out there that it would be way too hard for me to complain. A few complex decisions for the month of April, but nothing more.
Yes, I'm going to be extremely sad to leave Stanford. It has meant so much to me, and will always contain great memories for me. It's not going to send me spiralling down into some dark depth of depression, though. Perhaps the difference now lies in those new basketball leagues that seem to prmoise me that my playing days aren't going to come to an abrupt end in the month of April, but instead a new beginning. Our class is so lucky. We don't have to play our last game this year thinking that it may be our last game ever. We have opportunities and a huge sense of security that no other graduating class of female basketball players has had before us. I saw the look of almost terror on the faces of fellow teammates on their senior night. They didn't know what they were going to do, or how they were going to fill the void that would be created by this game suddenly deserting them. For the most part, they are playing again (Hedgepeth, Paye, Kaplan, Hemmer), but I remember how scared they were as graduation approached. Our sport has changed. We are the lucky ones. I don't have to look so petrified come graduation day. A little sad, maybe, but not scared.
So, for those of you that have inquired, I'm perfectly happy. I'm enjoying my senior year immensely. We're working hard, practicing our butts off, and hoping for another final four and a chance at a national championship. I feel extemly lucky and I am also very grateful for the women who came before me and worked to produce the opportunites that our class will have. I can say that I plan to keep playing basketball. That is a luxury I have, though it is really the accomplishment of everyone who came before me. Someone thank them for me, because I'm sure I'll be too shy to do it myself.
Good times. I think I'll have to knock on wood after a lot of this, but I really can't complain. They pay for my food. They pay for my rent. All I have to do is show up for some classes, and they pay for those too. And make it to practice, but I'd pay them to let me do that, so I guess I get the deal. I can't complain.
I always had a pretty big family, but I've added about 15 sisters during the last three years. We're all a lot different, and we're not perfect, but give us a little time and we stop expecting everyone else to be. Something about a team...