Happy Birthday?

What a (long) weekend!  The last four days seriously went by in a blink, and this trip home had to be one of the best birthday presents I have ever received.  To my friends in Lincoln who are wondering why they didn’t see me: I’m sorry.  I always try and see at least some of you guys whenever I’m stateside, but this time it was just too fast and I had a lot of acquainting to do.  I’ll be back in April - let’s party.  To my family: thank you so much for an awesome time and for my new little sister.

We've gone from a basketball team of boys to a mixed volleyball team.
Or a full game (two teams) of polo.

I wish I were able to spend more time with Kristina during her first few months, but sitting on my plane back to Houston and then to San José I have no doubt whatsoever that the trip to meet her for the first time was worth it.  Seeing her smile just once would have been enough, and while communication was certainly a difficult hurdle I have full confidence that she will be doing fine in a matter of months.  Her comprehension and phonetics are very good, and as soon as she gets the confidence to start producing she will really take off.  I’m so proud of what she has already done, and I can’t wait to get to know here more fully once those barriers begin to crumble.

Birthdays, as I rediscovered this weekend, are one of those few holidays we have left which truly brings people together to celebrate something pure and good.  It’s not about the person having the birthday (unless you choose to make it so).  It’s about the collective effort of everyone involved in making that life what it has been, is, and is becoming.  I had the extremely rare opportunity to see all four of my grandparents, an aunt and uncle, a cousin and cousin-in-law with their beautiful baby, and a new family member in a four day span, not to mention the rest of my friends and immediate family.  During my birthday celebration itself, something remarkable happened.  Kristina, my twelve year old sister of about a day and a half, sang “Happy Birthday” to me.  It was amazing because everything they had heard about and from her indicated she couldn’t or wouldn’t sing, yet somehow standing around an ice cream cake with the people who loved her enough to bring her into their family and meet a strange, bearded 23-year-old English teacher who called himself her brother was enough to spark that spontaneous outpouring of solidarity and celebration.  I feel truly blessed to have experienced such a thing for my twenty-third time, and to have shared that most recent occurrence with such an amazing little girl.

Unfortunately, my trip was no bed of roses.  On Sunday, my birthday, I received a couple of unwanted presents.  The first was a welt in the shape of a baseball I received from Sam while I was pitching to him for batting practice.  I got my head and shoulders behind the L-screen just fine, but that line drive came fast enough to find my ribcage before it made it to safety.  In his words, he “really laid on that one” (coming from a high school junior who hit over .400 with a nice collection of home run balls last season).

Sometimes, life slaps you upside the head.
With a baseball.

The other present was the reason I had gone down to hit, pitch, and be hit in the first place.  I found out that I’d been placed on the waitlist for the University of Minnesota Law School.  When I was denied entry to the University of Chicago, it was just the hope-crushing fulfillment of a realistic expectation.  This letter was somehow different.  Judging by last year’s incoming class, I should have been near the top quartile in both GPA and LSAT scores.  My resume is pretty good, and I’ve been doing a bit of volunteering recently as you may have heard.  Somehow a set of those factors didn’t add up in my favor or I blew it with a poor personal statement, and to be honest what truly frustrates me is the assurance that I’ll never know which it was.  Don’t get me wrong: the rejection stings much worse than that baseball.  Minnesota isn’t just a great law school; I had also applied to a dual program in Bioethics that I was really excited about.  Additionally, I have friends, family, and a significant other all living in the Twin Cities area.  Studying there would have been an honor and a privilege, but the knowledge that it will never occur is still not as frustrating as the question: why?

As hurtful as that letter was (and is), at least I wasn’t one of the baseballs who felt my frustration’s conversion into kinetic energy.  I don’t often let myself really get angry, mostly because I hate the effects when I do, but a batting cage is one of those few safe havens where a person can unreservedly and unashamedly let pain manifest itself in a tangible way.  Samuel was very careful to stay behind the L-screen.  Channeling exasperation in a positive way is very cathartic, and a batting cage has one big advantage over my usual medium: it doesn’t leave you with a song to sing to remember the thing that made you angry in the first place.

It's times like these when I think God must be a woman.

As a good friend once told me, the past can hurt, but it always presents us with two options.  We can run from it (deny it or, in my case, explain it away), or learn from it.  The fact that I don’t know why I didn’t get in would be frustrating either way, but I’m going to do my best to learn whatever I can from the experience.  Maybe I’m not supposed to be in Minnesota (or maybe just not yet).  Maybe God has a different plan for my life.  Maybe he doesn’t, and I need to honestly reevaluate myself to improve upon what I’ve done with it so far.  Even if I do, I have security in the knowledge that the God who created life, the parents who gave it to me, the siblings who make it worth living, and the friends and other family members with whom I share it will continue to love and support me no matter who accepts or denies my applications or aspirations in the future or in the past, and if I’m honest with myself I think that’s all I really need.

In the end, this trip was one of those times that reminds you what life is really all about.  Joy and pain are just the black and white sketch by which we remember our past;  relationships are the colors that make it memorable.  If you are one of the people I just mentioned, thank you.  If not, I don’t know how you found this blog.  Either way, thanks for coming along with me on this crazy adventure we like to call life.  If you feel the same way about the people in your own adventure, do me a favor.  Tell them.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from traveling alone, it’s that the people (not the places or the sights or the sounds or the work) are what make life worth living.