Fanatic

If someone had asked me a mere two months ago what I thought of baseball, he or she would be overwhelmingly bored by my response.  I'm a fair-weather fan of the truest form: I attend games because it's an excuse to spend 3 hours in the sun on a beautiful day.  I don't do bad weather, and night games are only acceptable if there isn't a neighboring day game that will work just as well.

As the Giants, the only good team near my home, found themselves winning the National League Division Series, I found myself suddenly becoming excited.  I was ready for something good to happen.  As they began the National League Championship Series, something completely unexpected happened in my life: I began to talk baseball.  I'd watch games in between classes at a local pizza joint or watch the play-by-play coverage on a classmate's computer if the game happened to overlap a lecture.  I'd tell people about how wonderful Matt Cain must be and joke with friends about Tim Lincecum's girly hair.  I even corrected a few guys on the lineup for an upcoming game.  As they won the NCLS and headed to the World Series, even more unexpected happened.  I began recording games on MyDVR to watch later so I could see the good plays.  An orange ribbon suddenly graced the locks of my blonde hair on game days, which more than anything was an excuse not to do my hair. (Or was it?) I became superstitious, blaming the one game loss on my failure of ribbon wearing.

And then it happened.

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series.  In the shortest game of the series, lasting only 2 hours and 32 minutes, Brian Wilson and his incredible beard pitched a scoreless ninth inning, leading the team to a 3-1 victory over the Texas Rangers.  I was sitting in the middle of a lecture, after being told by our professor that if we were to continue watching the game, we weren't allowed to disrupt the class.  Talk about a challenge.  I managed to keep my rear end glued to the chair for the next 37 minutes until class was over and I was free to celebrate.

But suddenly it didn't matter.

I didn't care anymore.  My passion and my excitement were gone.  By the time I was free to share about the sweet taste of victory, tweets were already pouring in of the world being sick of it.  "I'm not there yet," I wanted to scream at them. "Let me get in my two cents."  It was over.  The excitement, the buzz, the craze.  I'd missed the moments of celebration while in class, and I did what I could to milk what little conversation I could before settling back into a normal day with a normal classload and a normal commute home.  I felt like I'd once again missed out on something seemingly important by spending my night paying attention to another lecture.  My lengthy list of sacrifices I've made in the hopes of medicine was growing by the second.  Yet, it only seemed to do so for a few of those seconds.

I still have my pink Giants hat hanging from the bulletin board behind me, but neither the team nor the sport come up in my conversations anymore.  I may have relished in the photos from the parade commemorating the win and laughed about the ridiculous traffic for it, but I was done.

This whole process has started the churning wheels in my brain along a track of wondering how many times I do this exact thing in life:  invest my heart and time (and wardrobe) into something for a few seconds, minutes, hours or days, suddenly to have it be over.  How often do I care about something or someone, to simply not be bothered by it the next day?  Even when it works my way?  I make every effort I possibly can to make sure this doesn't happen with the people in my life.  I'm not a "here one minute and gone the next" kind of girl.  But how many times do I pick a favorite restaurant, or favorite movie, or favorite friend?  I simply have to have that new dress.  Until I get it home and the excitement is wears off, that is.

I'm a fair-weather fan to the core, and I prove it everyday it seems.  Thankfully, the One who's a fan of me doesn't lose passion or excitement.  He knows exactly what's coming, including disappointments and joys, ups and downs.  He knows it all because He willed it all.  And even through the wild turns on the crazy adventure of life, He remains my biggest fan.