This past Sunday, Beau and I took the kids to Miles City to watch our multi-talented nephew, Nate (a sixth-grader, pictured), play in the Cowtown Classic junior high basketball tournament. This annual tournament brings in young teams from all over the state for a weekend of basketball games played on every court in town.
The experience brought back a lot of memories, because I remember very well playing in the Cowtown Classic when I was in junior high. Back then I thought I was pretty. Big. Stuff. It’s laughable now, but I truly thought I had basketball, and life, all figured out.
I’m past 30 these days. And watching my nephew and his peers playing basketball this weekend, I couldn’t get past the feeling that they all seemed very… fresh from the womb. (Whatever that means.) Just kids. Just playing. Not setting any world records. Just being normal.
And I realized fully (Yikes! For the first time?) that when I played in the Cowtown Classic back in the mid-’90s, I too was fresh from the womb. Just a kid. Not doing anything great. Just doing. Probably causing my coach to bang his head on his clipboard.
Funny how your perspective changes. That was about twenty years ago. I wonder if in twenty more years I’ll look back at being a 33-year-old writer and wife and mother and think: Back then I thought I had life all figured out. But I was really just fresh from the womb…
© Tami Blake