Who was the 1994 AL MVP?*

Three of my many favorite things:

1. Sports

2. Games

3. My memory

One show that combines all of those things:

1. Sports Jeopardy

A Sports Jeopardy contestant:

1. MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"This is real life," is something I've had to repeat to myself over and over the last few days. It's the thing you say when the reality is just that unbelievable.

For me, the reality is that I get to be a contestant on a game show. It's a game show that only asks questions about sports. Dream. Come. True.

This girl grew up wanting to work in sports. Reporting from the sidelines of Monday Night Football games, the Sportscenter anchor desk, in-game announcer for the San Francisco 49ers, any and all of these things were on the list of things I could see myself doing some day.

I get sports. Player names. Rules. Stats. Stadiums. Mascots. They're all locked in my brain. 

And now I'm just hoping that next month when I'm standing in front of Dan Patrick and competing against other people who "get sports" those super random, not always useful, facts come out of my brain quickly because this girl wants to bring home some cash.

I'll follow up with details later about when my taping airs and how you can watch the show (good news - you don't need cable because you can watch online for FREE!), and hopefully I'll be able to share some behind the scenes info and photos after filming. 

*Answer: Frank Thomas - nicknamed "The Big Hurt"...how appropriate

Saying goodbye to 27

"With age comes wisdom."

And in my advanced (kidding) age of 28 this is what I know of wisdom: Wisdom is knowing what you don't know. Wisdom is admitting to yourself and others you don't have all the answers. Wisdom is living freely in this knowledge, not letting the truth of it weigh you down.

Wisdom is knowing that each of the following statements is true.

27 was a good year. 27 was a hard year. 27 was a fun year. 27 was a frustrating year. 27 was an adventurous year. 27 was a complete year.

I shared in my last post about my year of unexpected travel and how exciting that has been for me, but this is more about the things I've learned that has made this year and this age more than I dreamed it could be.

I was not perfect and my record in this year is not spotless. I placed distance in relationships that I shouldn't have. I deceived others. I sinned (more than once...). I strayed. I questioned my faith. I spent significant time believing God wouldn't take care of me, wasn't concerned with my happiness, and didn't care about my sadness. My bad. And yet, I am forgiven. For all of it.

However, what made this year so good was I chose faith more often than fear. Even in periods of unbelief I chose to trust that by stepping into the great unknown God would not only protect and guide me, but also always be with me. That saying no to average things meant saying yes to better things.

I met people I never would have met otherwise. I made myself available to others' needs. My limits were stretched, my strength tested. My dependence on the temporal things of this world has not disappeared, but it has lessened as my focus on the eternal becomes greater. My baggage still exists, but the load is lighter. 

I don't know what 28 holds, and I don't want it to be a repeat of this year or any year past, but I do hope and pray I continue to grow in wisdom, love big, fear less, trust more, and explore the unknown.

  

And with two years left of my 20s I plan on squeezing as much out of them as I can before conquering my 30s. 

The future is the present

At the beginning of 2015 I truly believed this year would include no travel. I told my best friend there would be no annual trip to St. Louis to visit her, her husband, and her little kiddos. There was no real possibility of a car or plane trip to visit family in Virginia or Florida. But, oh how wrong I was.

There was that trip to Kansas CIty to audition for Sports Jeopardy, the weekend in Cincinnati with an old friend eating macaroons and canoeing on the Little Miami, the short trip to Athens with the aforementioned bestie and her kids to explore our old stomping grounds, Minneapolis for work, Austin, TX for a party, and now?

CALIFORNIA!

Back in May my parents gave me a birthday card and threw me a mini surprise birthday party at the house. I expected none of it. My birthday is in November. To me, that night in May was like any other Saturday dinner at the house, but for them it was the chance to give me the surprise of a lifetime. A trip to CA for as long as I could manage to stay with my uncle. A trip that would include a football game to watch my 49ers in person, give me days to wander around my favorite city ever, San Francisco. A trip that allows me to go back to where I came from, enjoy nice weather in the midst of the changing season here in Ohio (the kicker is that El Nino is causing a bit of a warm up here in the Midwest, so the weather is pretty much the same), delaying the inevitable cold weather to come.

And now, the future is the present. The anticipation and expectant waiting is about to pay off, because here starts the beginning of the longest vacation I have taken on my own. 

The anticipation of this trip has totally eclipsed just about anything (well, paying off the car was pretty huge) I have waited on recently. 

As I write this I'm just thinking about how exciting it will be that my next post will be written from California. I mean, come on. It IS well with my soul right now, even if life isn't all good right now.

But for this time and in this place I get to rest. I get to enjoy sunshine and family, football and friends, and that is good. 

Also, I've had six months to plan and I still don't have anything concrete. And I'm enjoying the freedom that comes with winging it and just seeing what happens!

Payment 60 of 60

Five years.
Sixty checks.
One car. 
Mine.

This week I've been teasing something big was coming, and this is it. I have sent away the last check and my car is paid off. Once a month from October 21, 2010 until October 21, 2015 I have mailed that check. And now, FREEDOM!

This is a big deal. Some of you may have guessed that I was buying a house or a condo, and that would be a huge deal, but I'm not there yet. When I get there I'll be shouting it from a mountaintop, but for now I'm good.

And my car is paid off.

I have cried many tears in the last five years, some of them related to this car payment, most of them about many other things. But after I signed that last check I cried happy tears. And I danced. And then I cleaned my apartment.

The last five years have been one heck of a journey. I can pinpoint when my life started to turn around again to the day I signed the paperwork to buy the car. It's nothing special. It's a dark gray 2008 Honda Civic - used when I bought it in 2010 with about 21,000 miles on it. Today, it's still dark gray and it has a few small dents, the front bumper is kind of popped off on one side from that incident with a curb covered in snow at Denison a couple winters ago, there are a few scratches on the outside, and some stains on the carpets on the inside, and it has 99,300 miles on it. 

78,300 miles in five years. 

Some of these miles have taken me to fun, celebratory, joyous occasions. Some of these miles have been hard - I've said goodbye to friends and family, gone to funerals. Most of these miles are just ordinary, everyday tasks - work, home, church, the grocery store. The destinations may have changed, but the car and the driver were pretty much the same. 

When I bought this car my life was hard. I graduated from college in June 2009 and had a great plan. And that plan set up my life for the next 3-5 years. And that plan was made after much prayer and consideration, and I was certain it was going to work. Until it didn't. I moved back into my parents' house, started a job where I worked in a basement and sorted mortgages. And I sat at that desk asking God a lot of questions about what went wrong, why I was there, what He was doing. I began to believe that God was far away and he wasn't really working out any good for me. I was driving a car at the time that was on its last leg. It was 15 years old and it had a hole in the muffler, so I sounded like a Harley. My dad and I started a car search in the Spring of 2010 to get a feel for what I might want and how much I could afford. Time after time I got turned down for a loan. Happened at least three times. So we stopped looking for a while.

I was more than discouraged. I was done. I started thinking about all the things that I had failed at since I graduated and I let it overwhelm me. I pushed people away. I kept God at a distance. I believed this was all punishment for some mistakes I had made, and I let this become my truth.

And then in October, things fell into place. The car. The loan (props to Dad for the co-sign and his near-perfect credit). And more than that, my heart started softening a bit. Being able to buy my car did not make me believe in God more or even verify that he existed, but it was a reminder that I wasn't as far from God as I thought I was. In the three weeks following I had three significant conversations with women who knew me, who knew my struggles, and who cared about me anyway. They spoke truth. They showed love. They reminded me about grace. And they prayed with me and for me.

Since October 2010 my life has not been a straight road with no bumps. Nope. It's had twists and turns. I've missed my exit more than once. I've taken back roads and gotten lost. I've learned lessons. I've experienced heartbreak. I've gained and I've lost. I've traveled. I've grown.

I'm digging a song by Clinton Dixon right now called "Through All of It" and this is the chorus:

I have won and I have lost

I got it right sometimes 

But sometimes I did not

Life's been a journey

I've seen joy, I've seen regret

Oh and you have been my God

Through all of it

I'm not the same Jessica today as I was five years ago (more about that in a post in a couple weeks). I am a Jessica who has seen provision in times of great need. Two and a half years ago I was unemployed for six months with little to no savings. I was unemployed and I didn't miss a car payment. In sixty months I was able to make every single payment. I'm still not sure how it came together, but it did. I have always been able to make this payment.

So today? Today, I'm celebrating because it's done! Five years later I'm free!

Coming home

Tomorrow I'm going home to Athens. 

I don't know if words can describe how much excitement, anticipation, and joy that phrase brings me. I've lived in many towns, apartments, and states, but I didn't find my first true "home" until I was 17. It's not that my family didn't provide that space for me. Believe me, I have never felt unloved when living with my parents or sister, but what was created at Ohio University was something different entirely.

I met friends who became sisters. I shared rooms, struggles, late nights, meals, dance parties, and hopes and dreams with women who loved me, challenged me, accepted me, and daily pointed me to Christ. 

By the time we were Juniors I never went a day without seeing at least three of them - four of us lived together and the other four visited with such frequency that they were considered honorary roommates for the two years we lived in our apartment. Even when I felt alone and believed no one would care that was never the case. We called ourselves the "Sister Coaches" and we were fierce.

The Sister Coaches L to R: Sarah, Meredith, Hilary, Danielle, Michelle, Me, Katie, Leah

These are the women who taught me to love through the tough stuff. They taught me how to celebrate, and celebrate we did! For the first time in my life I was free to be me. I have quirks and habits or emotions that I am less than proud of, but that didn't matter with these women. Nothing was too small or too big to be brought into these relationships, and I believe my life today was 100% shaped by the time I spent at home in Athens with them.

More than six years have passed since we were all in Athens together. We have attended weddings together, celebrated babies, and sent each other off to foreign countries. I may not talk to them as often as I would want, but that does not lessen the impact each one of them had or has on me today. These are some of my first "people", one of my first tribes, and they will always hold a space in my heart.

This post is therapeutic for me. It feeds my need for nostalgia. And it allows me to say things I've kept inside for too long. To all of you, thank you for making me feel at home for four years. Thank you for being the reasons I missed Athens uncontrollably whenever I was away. I miss all of you. And I wish we all could go home together.

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." 

Phillipians 1:3-6