Like a Little School Kid

I’ve been pretty productive lately.  I’m taking care of all this insurance stuff and work’s been busy.  But last night I expanded my horizon just a bit more by trying out for the Denison Parks and Rec adult softball draft league.  We did go to choir first at church and sang with them for about 40 minutes.  But we had to leave early to get to softball on time.  We drove out to the field, found a parking spot, turned off the headlights, and just sat there a couple of minutes looking out onto the field thinking, “Do I really want to do this?”  Let me tell you, my nerves now are even shot!  It makes me really nervous for some reason.  Well, we finally got out of the car and walked toward the field.  I started to walk onto the field when I heard my name.  A guy was taking registration information/money.  So I went over, got “numbered,” and a slight bit of reassurance that everything was going to be okay.

But wait!  No, I hadn’t even thrown the ball or swung the bat yet.  I can’t really remember the last time I swung a bat, in fact.  But it was off to one of two groups, where I stood and waited for guys to rotate through this exercise: we were by first base, and catching the ball as thrown from the outfield.  Turns out, I never got up to do that part of the exercise before Ron, the parks and rec guy, called for rotation for us to go where the outfielders were.  When it was my turn, I kind of let the ball underneath my feet a bit and had to adjust in order to pick it up before grabbing it and thowing to first base (I’m sure I looked like a girl).

The next part was batting.  Ugh!  I was just freaking myself out.  But you know what, I actually did pretty well at bat.  I hit a foul, but the rest of them were drives through center field that went pretty far.  I was too caught up in the next pitch to see if anyone caught it.  I believe at least two were not caught.  Woohoo.

I feel nervous, even now, thinking about it.  I think at times I get too worked up over something.  But I think I had good reason.  At least if John or Todd or Jesse or Mike had been there, then it would have been a lot easier to cope with.  But total strangers watching a guy try out who hasn’t played softball since the city league in college?  Ya, just a bit on the nervous side.