What a difference a year makes

Anyone who knows me knows what a huge baseball fan I am. I’m not talking about the “fan” who seems to be everywhere now that the Rangers are making their second straight post-season run. I’m talking about me! I know the entire 40-man roster top to bottom and can recite it on a dare. I play in a fantasy baseball league so complex my wife constantly questions my sanity. I was sweating games in May the same way we are all sweating these incredible October games.  So as you can imagine, this time of year pretty much everything else takes a backseat … or at least it used to.

Things We Do

It's no secret that when you become a parent, you've signed on for certain things: middle of the night feedings, searching out monsters in the closet or under the bed, getting puked and pooped on. There are endless smiles and giggles, stories and lullabies, and hugs and kisses. As the children get older, there are family jokes, traditions, stories they read to you instead of the other way around, and a multitude of "firsts."

Breaking Promises to Myself

In just one week, I will be forced to break a promise I made to myself several years ago. It’s a vow I had every intention of keeping until my last breath on this earth. And, it’s making me realize just how far I will go to make my children happy.

After college I had a disastrous episode with community theater that I have tried very hard to forget. I was single and working in my first grown-up job in a small Texas town that just happened to be home to more old people than any other county in the entire state (and while I tend to be dramatic at times, that was a statistical fact based off US Census data). Let me suffice it to say, there were not a lot of people my age and not a very active nightlife. Perfect for a person just out of college and ready to take on the world.

Some of the people I worked with, including a few physicians, were acting in an upcoming community theater production and they invited me to join the group. I auditioned won a part and I was off and running. I was playing Florence Nightingale – a fairly meaty role. The rehearsals were boisterous and I met a lot of new people. It was really fun!

Until, on opening night, I tripped over some cords on stage and fell flat on my face. In front of a packed house of people I knew both professionally and personally (like my boss, the hospital president, several physicians and my family who drove in from out of town for the occasion). And, to make matters worse, I injured my knee in the fall, couldn’t stand up and had to crawl off stage. Yes, I said CRAWL. All of this while a particularly foul tempered and extremely prissy otolaryngologist raged at me just off curtain: “DAMN IT -- GET UP! GET UP!”