Hits off my leather glove’s scent between pitches. The shortstop yelling “Two down!” to me in centerfield. Me holding up two fingers back. Fescue trimmings and dew covering my cleats. Errors forgotten in the dugout over lagers and laughs. The soft hoot of an owl echoing from the forest beyond the fence.
It’s been two years since I played in that softball league. I don’t remember who won the games. I don’t remember how I played in them. I remember being worried about who won and how I played, but now, all I remember is how it felt to be in those games.
In our life, the stakes are always high. Whether the pitch is called ball or strike, matters. The outcome always matters. But something else matters more. Being there. My life was a mess; I’d just quit medicine, I’d just married, and I was making no money. And still, as I’ve come to find out, I had everything that mattered… if I only remembered to take a deep breath in through the web of my glove and listen for the next hoot between cracks of the bat.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
