PostSeason Throwback

Lately….I’ve been doing something unusual. Staying up and watching baseball. Sure I love GOING to baseball games (mostly because I love nachos)...but I never want to watch it on TV. I can’t help but be swept up in a little bit of Rangers fever (but I refuse to start listening to Creed again). I’ve been seeing everyone post some October Rangers baseball from 2011…and it made me hunt for my own. I found a few images, but I also found this. Felt like a good time to bring it back into the rotation. 

(Circa October 2011)

A few nights ago was Game 2 of the World Series. I went to bed while St. Louis had the lead. It didn’t look good for the Rangers and call me a two percenter all you want, but my mornings start early.  The next morning, while getting coffee I was shocked to see a Rangers win taking up a full page spread on a newspaper that another customer left discarded on the table. I went to sleep.  And missed it. (and I wish I had slept through Game 3 but that is a different post)

Last night, my average college team took down the #3 team in the nation. And I went to bed at half time. Again I was worn out and exhausted. Even though we were up by several touchdowns I kind of expected them to lose it anyways.  I am totally into my college football (well at least my team, not like my husband who can somehow be into every team). A rain delay and two trunk or treats with a Jawa and Rainbow Brite on too much candy had done me in. When my husband came to bed well after midnight he informed me that they held the lead for one of the biggest upsets in school history. I had gone to  sleep. Again.

Sure I can watch the highlights or read about it in the paper but that isn’t quite the same thing. Reading about it after the fact doesn't make your heart pound and you certainly don't jump off the couch cheering. Knowing how it ends somehow ruins all that.

I read somewhere today that the plot of pretty much every single musical is really simple: Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. (Suddenly I have the urge to watch Grease). And how lame would the story be if we ended it after the first act. Or we left after the break up scene. How different would most books or movies be if we stopped in the middle. Or like me, went to sleep before it was really over.

And I’ve read and listened to enough talks about writing to learn that a critical element to any story is conflict.

In other words. The middle.  I hate that. I want to start at the beginning and skip to the end and avoid the messy, long hard middle.The part where we have to go to the store. Or the kids are sick. Or the tire is flat. Or I watch the same episode of House for the 10th time. Or we get on each other's nerves.  I’m even going to go out on a limb and say that conflict is critical not just to story but also to the relationship. Show me a married couple who never fights and I’m willing to bet they never speak.

The middle isn’t always the most intriguing part of the story.

The beginning tries to hook you and the ending tries to make you cry with either joy or sadness and resolve everything. Those two chapters get all the big scenes and moments and the fanciest words.

But the middle is really where the story is.

And 90% of the time we are living in the middle. In the conflict. Or the boring stretch. Or where a character (the one in the story or even just our own) is being developed. The middle is where we grow, even when it is painful.

We long for beginnings and ends. But we can’t have a story without the middle.

And I am not naïve enough to think that they all have happy endings.

Some of those subplots are still going to be tragedies.

The boy might not get the girl back.

Games are lost.

Healing doesn’t always happen.

Some middles are really ends that lead to even better beginnings.

I’m learning to appreciate the middle. I’m realizing that it is an important part of the story. Even if it isn’t the one I’m trying to tell. And that if the middle is hard I just need to wait until the next act. Or at least stay awake long enough to see the end of the game.

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