Tonight I'm sad. Really sad. For tomorrow would have been Justin's first football game of his senior year. Though the game starts at 7 I would have been there at 530 to save seats for "our crowd"...of course, I'd be wearing one of my hundreds of Desert Ridge T-shirts from my collection that has it's own cabinet in our house. I would have strategically placed purses, water bottles, towels and anything else I could think of over about 4 or 5 rows of seats and frantically waited for all of our friends to show up. As the little siblings would run off and play who knows where until 10 when the game ends, us adults would have laughed, yelled, chatted and bit our nails off together all night long. There'd be Sea Salt and Black Pepper sunflower seeds all over the bleachers with a few empty Sonic cups. I'd have my red ice chest filled to the rim with fruit, waters, capri suns and string cheese for all the kiddos and one of my hubbys burly friends would carry it down for me at the end of the night. We'd walk down to the field, let the boys sing their fight song to us and wait to hug our smelly players. My hubby would be hoarse and we would go home talking crap about Coach Hathcock and his crappy calls only to eagerly anticipate next weeks game.
But this year, unlike the past 3, I won't have a son on the field. I'll really have no reason to be there other than the fact that I looked forward to it for so long that I'll HAVE to go. Justin will be just another face in the stands and not someone who will excite us just by wearing the uniform. He will walk around like all the other students flirtin' with the ladies and having push up competitions. I know deep down he'll be missing it, wishing he were still in the middle of all the excitement down on the field. Cursing Coach under his breath but wanting desperately to be out there with his team. Then he'll remember the way he worked so hard for nothing and will be glad he made the decision he did and he'll be okay with it. Which I guess means I need to be okay with it too...
Go D-Ridge!!
