That moment when...

I play city league volleyball on Thursday nights. I played ball in high school, and I have kept with it, on some level, since I graduated. It's fun! Granted, my volleyball obsession isn't nearly close to what it was when I was in high school. Back then, there was a group of us who played religiously. Every Tuesday and Thursday night at the local recreation center from 7:00 till 10:00 pm. When the rec center closed we would go across the street and play until 2:00...3:00...sometimes even 4:00 in the morning. It didn't matter that I generally had to be at the school by 5:30 the next morning for madrigals. We were playing volleyball. And that was the most important thing! We usually played on the weekends, too. Once the sun went down (cause it was too dang hot to play when the sun was out) we automatically drifted to the courts at Vernon Worthen park. I have a lot of great memories from that time in my life.

But that's not really the story I meant to tell.... What I was getting at was this. I play city league volleyball on Thursday nights. And this past week, something dreadful happened at our games. It wasn't that we lost our first match. That happens. The dreadful part was that, at the end of that first match, I commented that I was proud of our team for how well we played. I said (and I quote), "Good job team! I am proud of us for keeping up with that team of seven foot tall, 20 year old girls. We played really well!" My older sister (they're all older, cause I'm the youngest in the family) agreed.

And that's when it happened. From behind me, Tayleigh said the saddest thing I've heard in a long time. She said, "It's happened, hasn't it? We are the "old lady" team in the league, aren't we?" We stood in the gym and looked across the 2 courts of girls playing volleyball, and her statement was confirmed. We are, in fact, the old lady team in the league.

I gotta tell ya, I didn't see this one coming at all. In my head, most of the time, I am still a seven foot tall, 20 year old--even though I'm only 5'9" and I haven't been 20 years old for a decade, now. I recognize that there are things that hurt now that didn't hurt when I was 20-mostly my shoulder. But somehow, I didn't realize that there were other girls out there, coming up behind me, turning me into a member of the old lady team.

I guess it's a good thing I have the wisdom of age on my side. Otherwise I might really be upset about this realization!