Fragile Moves

A Summer of Softball Dirt, Tears, and New Plans

Over the summer Corie and I spent as much time together as possible. I would come over to her house early morning to sleep next to her for a few hours before she would need to go to work. Between my job and spending time with Corie, I played softball for a new organization. I was falling in love with softball all over again.

Playing with this team meant league games, practices, and tournaments every week. I started to create new bonds with a new team. We weren't AMAZING. But we could stand our own against teams that were supposed to be WAYYY out of our league. We won our first tournament in April. It was an amazing start to the season. During graduation weekend, my team won ANOTHER tournament. Sadly, I was watching from the garage during my graduation party rather than playing. But when I facetimed my coach during the medal ceremony, he made sure to put a medal around his phone and told me that I was an important part to the team. Even if I was miles away. We ended up winning nationals. Almost undefeated. It reminded me of when I was playing for Waverly Heat with Corie and we barely won state. This time she couldn't be there considering I was in a different state. But she was cheering me on through facebook live.

With softball in full swing it was time to get serious about college. While talking to a childhood friend (who I was also playing softball with) she mentioned South Dakota State University. I was planning on majoring in agriculture education and SDSU was the agriculture school of South Dakota. I would get to pay in state meaning it was much cheaper compared to my first plan. So I booked a tour in June.

SDSU won over my heart instantly. It wasn't too far away from for me to come home during weekends, but it was far enough for me to have my own my life. The cold was kind of a worry, but I was ready to face it to come to this school. I applied in July and was accepted a few weeks later. This meant Corie and I would be 6 hours away from each other. For four years.

Yeah. That was hard one to be okay with. But Corie pushed me to go. She knew it was something that I needed to do. Something that would push me to further my career.

As the summer came to end I was sad. Sad to leave my life in Nebraska. Sad to leave my friends, my girlfriend, and my family. Corie left before me. We said our goodbyes and I would be lying if I said that it wasn't hard. We have never been more than 10 minutes from each other for more than a week. I kept thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Was I ready to leave everything behind?