Year eighteen, age seventeen and senior year at Oak Park: September 1999-Y2K.
New Years Eve countdown to 2000, also known as Y2K-- for those of my readers too young to remember-- was this big hype because it was possible to end the world as we knew it, although it actually turned out to be nothing. But in the weeks preceding there were all these news stories covering the event. One afternoon this girl who wrote for the school newspaper called my house and asked for me. She wanted to know if she could come over and do a story about my family and the stash of dry-goods that we kept in our basement. At first I was a little confused but then I figured it out and politely informed her that, while we did have a large stash of dry-goods in our basement, it wasn't there for Y2K. "My dad just always keeps a lot of food in our basement," I said.
The summer before senior year I took this supplemental summer class called, Peak Performance. It was basically a combination of running, weight lifting, sports psychology and physiology. It was co-taught by my cross country coach, Coach Warner, and the wrestling coach, Coach Mayab. Mayab was notorious not only for coaching the best high school wrestling team in the state and one of the best in the country, but also for his psychology classes. I took sports psychology senior year with him and one day he dropped a piece of paper on my desk. We did this thing regularly where we would bring in a quote, read it aloud, and tell what it meant to us. This particular day he had me read this quote:
All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they'll say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. They will tell you no, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. And you will tell them yes.
-Nike
Maybe it was random that he set that particular quote on my desk that day, but I don't think so.
During the fall of this year I was finally on the varsity cross country team. It took me four years to get there but I finally achieved that dream. And it was a dream. I started out as a terrible runner, but by my senior year I led our team of girls to the most competitive sectional meet in the state. And by that I mean I was a leader on the team, not necessarily the fastest. There was at least one girl who was faster and she actually made it to state that year. But our coaches asked me to come along on the trip also, to run with her the last week she practiced, to warm up and cool down with her the day of the big meet and help her to stay focused and encouraged. This was actually a huge honor for me.
Senior year is when I remember first understanding what it meant to be a leader. I remember watching this girl break down emotionally at this thing called Worship Jam that I would go to with other Young Lifers at William Jewel College on Thursday nights. I looked at her and I remembered what it felt like to be in that place emotionally and spiritually. Then it clicked that I was not there anymore, that I was now in the position to be the one helping people like her walk through things like that. And I felt the call of responsibility to not let the gospel of Jesus or the experience of running or anything else, stop with me. Not that I had somehow fully arrived, but it was time for me to pay it forward.
The state cross country meet was in Columbia, Missouri and that was where I had wanted to go to college since I was eight and I got to go help my sister, Suzanne, move into her dorm room there, not that I did any heavy lifting or anything. When I saw her go off to college, that became the only college experience I wanted. That night after we dropped her off and got back home to Kansas City, I actually got out a scrap piece of paper, a pencil and my bank book and I calculated how much money I would have by the time I was old enough to go there. I had been dreaming and planning it from that day on.
Later this particular year, as graduation was drawing nearer, I practically begged my dad to let me go to school there. He really wanted me to go for two years to the community college down the road from our house, since I qualified for this program that would allow me to go there for free. But I felt so strongly that Mizzou was the place for me that one night I actually printed off the lyrics to the song Wide Open Spaces by the Dixie Chicks and put them on his bed.
Who doesn't know what I'm talking about
Who's never left home, who's never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone
Many precede and many will follow
A young girl's dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won't be coming back with the rest
If these are life's lessons, she'll take this test
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
As her folks drive away, her dad yells, "check the oil!"
Mom stares out the window and says, "I'm leaving my girl"
She said, "It didn't seem like that long ago"
When she stood there and let her own folks know
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She knows the highest stakes
The next day Dad said to me quietly, "If you want to go to school at MU, we'll make it happen."
Senior year I was really good friends with this guy named Aaron. I used to go with him to the youth group at his church and I would cut his and his brothers's hair on the side. Cutting hair is another random skill of mine. Anyway, Aaron and I had this thing where we would go get pie together, in the same way that friends today go get coffee. It was exactly like a coffee shop experience, except that it happened in Perkins or Burger King, which has surprisingly good pie for like a dollar.
One night before we both went off to college, Aaron and I met at Burger King for what would be our last pie chat. We talked like always and then we talked about where we saw ourselves and each other in the near and far future. I told him that I thought I would go to college and then come back to Kansas City, get married and have a family. I couldn't really imagine settling down anywhere else. He told me that he didn't think that's how things would go for me. He said he rather saw me off traveling and living an adventure.
Turns out, he was right.
No comments:
Post a Comment