I often take people by surprise in conversation when they ask me about my past relationships and I tell them that I have dated, been divorced twice, and married three times. All of a sudden I start getting the looks like I am approaching Hue Heffner status. I usually get responses like “WOW” or “were you twelve when you married your first husband?” I wear it quite proudly, often cracking a humorous joke that I have statistically significant research data or with my current husband I always tell him “that out of all my husbands he is my favorite one.” All kidding aside I can say with absolute certainty that as I have lived and learned through all those experiences they have served as building blocks helping me to create better versions of myself. I have replaced the word regret with enlightenment in my vocabulary.
You’re probably wondering what baseball has to do with dating, commitment, falling in love, marriage, divorce, hours spent on E-Harmony, or dreaded blind dates? Well a lot actually as I am sitting here trying to figure out a way to visually explain my own journey the link between the two seemed obvious. In baseball there are three bases, each one symbolic of getting closer to the main goal of scoring a run. There are different positions in baseball like pitcher, catcher, and outfielder. You can make big homeruns or major strikeouts. Sometimes you get pegged with a ball going 100 mph per hour “OUCH!” Other times you slide into home and you have a welt of honor down your whole leg. To me all of the relationships I have been in have contained strikeouts, homeruns, and oh boy have I been pegged with a few fastballs.
You’re probably wondering what baseball has to do with dating, commitment, falling in love, marriage, divorce, hours spent on E-Harmony, or dreaded blind dates? Well a lot actually as I am sitting here trying to figure out a way to visually explain my own journey the link between the two seemed obvious. In baseball there are three bases, each one symbolic of getting closer to the main goal of scoring a run. There are different positions in baseball like pitcher, catcher, and outfielder. You can make big homeruns or major strikeouts. Sometimes you get pegged with a ball going 100 mph per hour “OUCH!” Other times you slide into home and you have a welt of honor down your whole leg. To me all of the relationships I have been in have contained strikeouts, homeruns, and oh boy have I been pegged with a few fastballs.
It was an easy progression for me marrying my first boyfriend at the ripe old age of eighteen. Where I lived there were more cows than people so the pickings were scarce. WOW! Yeah, a country girl married up and ready to have a house with a white picket fence. As an individual I had no idea who I was yet and so I did what a lot of people do in these situations, I became someone else that was not me. I got to become the perfect ideal person for my first husband eventually ending up in a strikeout, because lets be honest pretending to be someone else is exhausting. Eventually, you look in your bathroom mirror and you don’t even recognize the person staring back at you.
I walked myself through the bases on my second marriage going the safe route and watching out for the 100 mph fastballs that hurt like hell! Unfortunately, the safe route isn’t always the right route. You know the route where you settle, where you know that no matter what you are not going to get hurt, and even if it fails you can still recover quite quickly. I would always know if I was taking the “safe route,” because I would say things like “he’s a really good friend,” or “yeah, but he is really funny.” It was always quite amusing to me when my family would scratch their heads at some of the guys I would date and my mom would say something like “really… are you kidding me?”
So after major strikeouts, walking the bases, and getting pegged a few times I decided it was time to take a break from the game. My game was off, I wasn’t catching well, and I hadn’t really hit any balls out of the park. I left the game for nine months to reflect on myself, what I wanted, who I was, what was working, and what wasn’t working. It was initially easier for me to say that my teammates were dropping the ball. However, it wasn’t the route I chose to take and it was damn hard to take responsibility for my own part in how I was playing the game.
I walked myself through the bases on my second marriage going the safe route and watching out for the 100 mph fastballs that hurt like hell! Unfortunately, the safe route isn’t always the right route. You know the route where you settle, where you know that no matter what you are not going to get hurt, and even if it fails you can still recover quite quickly. I would always know if I was taking the “safe route,” because I would say things like “he’s a really good friend,” or “yeah, but he is really funny.” It was always quite amusing to me when my family would scratch their heads at some of the guys I would date and my mom would say something like “really… are you kidding me?”
So after major strikeouts, walking the bases, and getting pegged a few times I decided it was time to take a break from the game. My game was off, I wasn’t catching well, and I hadn’t really hit any balls out of the park. I left the game for nine months to reflect on myself, what I wanted, who I was, what was working, and what wasn’t working. It was initially easier for me to say that my teammates were dropping the ball. However, it wasn’t the route I chose to take and it was damn hard to take responsibility for my own part in how I was playing the game.
My husband and I five years ago! Nine months of taking responsibility and participating in what I call my “monk sabbatical” came to a screeching halt the moment I met my third husband while sitting on a poker table in Las Vegas. All of a sudden I was in the game again with absolutely no game plan. It was the game of my life, playing from my heart, making no excuses, setting no unreachable standards, throwing all the rules out the window, and leaning into love. I “knocked this one out of the park” and after only 72 hours of face to face with a man I only just met, WE GOT MARRIED VEGAS STYLE! Now your probably thinking that this is an out-take from “Hangover Part Crazy,” but after almost five years of marriage I can truly say that I am so happy I came out to play a little baseball.
I don’t know about you, but for a long time I thought I was cursed, meant to be single for the rest of my life, and seriously considered becoming the “cat lady.” This was only a tale I told myself when things seemed perilous, impossible, and lonely. I think as humans we all feel this way sometimes and that we also all yearn for human connection with someone who is “our person.” Your person, the one who gets you, the one that has a read on you without speaking a word, and the one that doesn’t make you feel like you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole is actually out there somewhere. The person that you have a connection with that seems as natural as the process of waking up and going to sleep is truly in the universe waiting for you. The secret is tuning into your own game and taking every opportunity to “knock it out of the park.”
I don’t know about you, but for a long time I thought I was cursed, meant to be single for the rest of my life, and seriously considered becoming the “cat lady.” This was only a tale I told myself when things seemed perilous, impossible, and lonely. I think as humans we all feel this way sometimes and that we also all yearn for human connection with someone who is “our person.” Your person, the one who gets you, the one that has a read on you without speaking a word, and the one that doesn’t make you feel like you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole is actually out there somewhere. The person that you have a connection with that seems as natural as the process of waking up and going to sleep is truly in the universe waiting for you. The secret is tuning into your own game and taking every opportunity to “knock it out of the park.”
 | This blog brought to you by Tricia Sarahs, Super Geek and Chief Optimism Officer! |
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