Up in the Air

As I write (and post) this blog, I am riding at 35,000 feet, and pondering what I have to offer the world below. The mountaintops are dribbled with snow like melted sugar on cinnamon roles and I can’t decide if I want to ski them or eat them. The other day I saw a TV show that highlighted a restaurant in Texas that had birthday-cake-sized cinnamon roles. I can’t seem to get them out of my mind.

I don’t like to make room for regret, but as I look at my life so far, there are a couple of opportunities that have passed me by that I would like to have again. I have detailed a few below. In no way has my life been less than for lack of these experiences, but I do wonder what it would have been like.

1. I wish that I would have tried to play football in school. Looking back, the reason I didn’t was nothing less than obvious. As freshman in high school I was 5’1” and 90 pounds soaking wet. My sophomore year I was 5’2” and maybe 100 lbs. It just wasn’t my bag. I ran cross country, but man I was a good little athlete. I didn’t let my size stop me in any other sport. I actually grew my junior and senior years in high school and went out for baseball, but there’s really nothing to write about that. I think I could have made a good little corner on the football team. In all of our pick up games I was really good at giving the other teams receiver just enough room to look open, but also keep them close enough to sneak in for an interception or to bat the ball down. I was fast. I might have also been a good kick returner. I was really good at making people miss. I played my share of pick up tackle football games, and I was pretty successful at running the ball back for a touchdown once or twice a game. Either I was pretty good, or everyone else was awful.

2. I wonder what it would have been like to go to college out of town. I was real involved in church activities, and worked several jobs, but sometimes I wonder what my experience would have been like away. I imagine I would have worked harder to finish school in 4 (or 5) years, and that studies would have been way more important to me. I know that I would have loved the experience and the necessity of making new friends and rely on them as a part of my family away from family. I wonder to what decisions I would have made differently without the pressure of everyone knowing my parents. I don’t expect I would have been a wild child, but no doubt I might have had some different experiences to talk about. Plus too, I might have an alma mater (I don’t think I spelled that right) that I was proud to call my own. Sorry Mean Green.

3. I think about this one all the time. I wonder what my life would look like now if I had joined the military right out of high school. As I sat across from my military recruiter one overcast day nearing my high school graduation to decline their offer, I felt like I had made a decision I would never look back on, but I couldn’t be more wrong. I imagine I might have much more discipline, and a much different view of my life than I do now. I would certainly know what it means to put my life in the hands of a group of men and women in a way that I will likely never experience as a civilian. Shows like “Band of Brothers” or “Blackhawk Down” really tap into the emotional center of my being. I feel like I could have made a difference somewhere. I kinda wish it was a requirement for all men and women before they went on to college.

Well, enough of that. Hope you had fun wandering around in my brain. Until next time, do you have any opportunities you wish you had back?