Allison's Private Journal

Dear Journal,

OMG, a kid got hit by a car right in front of Madie’s grand-mother’s street today!!!  Madie said she went to see what was going on and there was blood all over the street!  He’s 14.  An old lady hit him when she turned a corner.  He was in the street on his bike.  Well we’re not sure how he is right now, but it doesn’t sound good from the blood all over the street.

To change the subject, my tournament in Somerset starts tomorrow.  Tonight I went to Lance’s place with the other ‘Boro people on Renegades.  [The pitching machine] was set at like 60 mph!  I got quicker after a while, and by my second bucket, I hit almost all of them.

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It wasn’t good.  The boy in the accident died a few days later.  He had been riding his skateboard near the intersection of a busy street in my hometown and strangely speedy residential street.  The woman who hit him was not an “old lady,” but a middle-aged nurse.  I didn’t get what any of this meant for anyone’s lives at this point, but I learned almost a year later the incredible effects of the death of a young person.

I have never thought of myself as an effective changer of subjects, but as abrupt as my delivery is here I think I did a pretty damn good job.  Maybe it’s because these are my memories, or that I in fact have no soul–I know writing this reflection it is the former.  Behind the sad tale of our lost skateboarder is the spark of my serious love for hitting.  As much as softball became an emotional, time and effort-consuming burden in later years, I never lost my passion for crushing a pitch.  I loved my quick hands, the mental challenge of anticipation, and most of all letting those hours of hitting off a tee and a machine and soft-toss in the basement work in the most gratifying instant of pulling a shot against a hot popper of a pitch.  As I got older and the pitchers got better–faster–knocking a hit off the talked-about pitchers gave a rush like nothing else.

Thinking about it makes me wish I had been a little more confident with myself and a little more self-serving with the sport back in the day; I haven’t found a stress reliever quite like a good softball practice since I quit playing five years ago.  Maybe it’s time to find an indoor league, and I won’t have any of that slow-pitch crap.  I’m talking fast-pitch, women’s only league.  My fear of being turned into a lesbian by the sport and that visible demographic associated is long gone.  Allison couldn’t take the heat of teasing from her high school classmates about the “manly”/”dyke” vibes being great at softball gave off, or the trend started by an evil classmate where the entire boy’s cross-country team would call me “Gym” (short for “Gym Teacher”) incessantly as they passed during field hockey practice sophomore year, but at twenty-two I have experienced enough to know there are some things in life that can never be replaced by plastic or rubber.  Girls are gorgeous and sexy, and if I could fool around with myself I would, just like Henry DeTamble in The Time Traveler’s Wife, but I have never had the desire to go there with another female.

By the way, if you aren’t familiar with the Time Traveler’s Wife reference, I hope you aren’t confused because this wasn’t a part of the movie; I would much prefer you’ve simply never read the book or seen it’s horrendous adaptation featuring Rachel McAdams and my dude, Eric Bana (can I get a Sizzle, Sizzle, FIRE?).  We can still be friends if you’ve seen the movie and never read the book, but I would strongly encourage you to read this novel if you had any draw to the  plot.  It’s by Audrey Nifenegger.  Go ask for it as a last-minute Christmas present right when you’re done here.

Anyways, my biggest issues through high school regarded other people’s perceptions of what I was doing–very rarely how I felt about things.  I like to be optimistic about past insecurities though, and if I hadn’t made decisions based on the influence of the verbally judgmental I would not be where I am today.  I thank God for bringing me together with one of my best friends I became close with towards the end of my freshman year at Syracuse; I needed one last swift kick in the ass to do my thing and not give a fuck, and Kailee gave me that and more.  I will go into greater detail about the good and bad of this friendship later on in my entries.  It is mostly good, we just acted slightly unladylike through much of our sophomore year and in sporadic pockets of college life thereafter.  The memories make us pee our pants; as we are alive and well today, I love this.

That’s all for now.  I’ve written an incredible amount more than I ever imagined I would based on this entry.  I guess my softball years aren’t such a boring thing to reflect of after all.