TO COME FULL CIRCLE (Dictionary.com): To make a complete change or reform; To complete a cycle of transition, returning to the point of origin.
And so it was… back to NJ for me a few weekends ago. Visiting friends and family… Back to my roots, where I started my softball career. Where my life changed, where I became who I am today.
I drove over to my HS and as I pulled into the parking lot behind the school, I remembered immediately what it felt like to be there. I walked over the little bridge to see something completely different than what I remembered. It all changed. Everything changed. The school was added onto… the fields were moved and re positioned. It was nothing like when I was there 20 years ago. But I still found myself walking through the grass with the feelings I got on game day. Taking a deep breath to take it all in. I found solace in the fact that I still, after all these years, feel the same way when my feet touch a softball field. Passion… unbreaking, real, true passion for the game.
So while I have certainly made a complete change, and I am sure a few… in my lifetime since those days at that little high school in my small suburban town just outside of NYC, I have also found so many times where my life has come full circle. Completing that cycle of transition and returning to the point of origin…. my life…. in a nutshell.
I am older, wiser (I like to think), more open to learning, softer, tougher, more true to myself…. But I will never ever forget where I came from.
It’s not a crazy story by any means…. nothing like those who have spent their time in inner city ghettos finding their way out and into something more. Or like someone who was orphaned and grew up with next to nothing. Or someone who had a long line of abuse or drug use or some other horrible negative they had to overcome. NO… it wasn’t like that. I was an average kid who played sports, grew up in a good family with a roof over my head. Nothing spectacular. A car accident changed some things for me, but it didn’t end my life.
I am here, full circle.
And so it goes. Life happens, moves on and you find new things to fulfill you. You move forward to move backward… and backward to move forward. And the merry-go-round keeps turning. Some days it spins faster than others…. some days you just long to get off and others have a deep want and desire to get back on…. and around and around it goes.
So as I see my life in places return to the point of origin, I will never forget where I came from. I won’t forget the feeling I get when I take myself back to a spring day in 1990, toeing the rubber, knowing the game was on my shoulders. I look back now and I find such strength in the little moments of victory. I have taken them with me from that field at THS. I have learned from every moment.
No beginning and no end…
You always come full circle.
