Up until now, I always seemed to have a “thing”, some hobby or activity that I wouldn’t say defined my life at that time but played a big role in it.

One fun fact about myself is that I did gymnastics for six years. I started in fourth grade and stopped after ninth, mostly because I kept hurting myself and the studio I went to stopped offering gymnastics classes. I was actually pretty good at it, and I helped assistant teach the younger classes and worked backstage at recitals.

The tricks I could do were nowhere near what the Olympic gymnastics did, but I could do more than a regular person I guess. Cartwheels and round-offs (both left-handed and right-handed and one-handed), backbends, back walk-overs, front walk-overs, front handsprings, splits (both left and right), walking splits, and a variety of headstands. My favorites were back walk-overs and walking splits.

Each year we performed to a different song/theme at recitals, and my favorite was the year—I think I was in sixth grade—that the song for my class was “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith. And I remember our leotards were pink, yellow, and blue tie-dye.

As I mentioned, I stopped after ninth grade, and there are many many pictures of my recitals somewhere that no one really needs to see, because I was extremely awkward back then.

In eleventh grade, I became the manager of my high school’s varsity baseball team, which was certainly an adventure. My main job was to keep the score book for all games—home and away—but I ended up doing a bunch of other things that didn’t fit in my job description, although the running joke was that I didn’t have one.

Managing the team was a great way to end my last two years of high school. We became our own little family, and I often referred to the team as my team of misfits. In 2011, the team made school history by winning its division for the first time in school history.

Although I wasn’t directly involved in winning the division, I still felt honored to be a part of it. (And they put my name on the back of the shirts we got.) I have so many funny stories from my two seasons with the boys, and it was such a great experience. My poor Mom even got roped into joining the Booster Club.

Senior night my senior year was bittersweet, and it was nice that they acknowledged me with the players.

I so miss sitting in the dugout. We’d start playing in early April when it was sometimes still cold, and by the end of the season in May, I’d have so many random sunburns from standing out there in the afternoons. I brought food for the boys—and by food, I mean Goldfish crackers—and put up with their rapid fire questions.

I still sort of stay in touch with a few of the guys, but we all kind of went our separate ways. It’s nice to know, though, that we’re all still connected because of that bond. (Especially since the town closed my high school a few years ago.)

In college, I had some trouble finding my way, and thankfully I put on my big girl pants and applied for a few things my sophomore year. That’s when I became involved with Spring Event, which was my university’s big spring concert.

I was Publicity chair on the E-board my sophomore and junior year, and it was a blast. I got so much experience doing it, and I met some really great people. (That’s actually how I met my ex-boyfriend. He was also on the E-board, and we worked on two Spring Events together.)

My sophomore year, Andy Grammer and Boyce Avenue performed. Andy Grammer was wicked cool and laid back, and at one point I had a video of him on my phone playing ping-pong with his drummer in our aerobics room.

My junior year, Gabriel Iglesias performed. We sold out that show—and had to set up over 1,000 chairs—for the first time in a few years, and we were all so happy. He had a few openers with him, and he went on around 10:00 p.m. and kept going until around midnight, when they had to turn the lights on so we could break down the stage.

The only downside to that show was that it was on a Wednesday night—Spring Event is normally a Friday night—but that was the only day we could get him for, and we wanted Fluffy.

I applied for E-board again my senior year but didn’t get the position. I still helped out, though, backstage, which was actually a lot of fun. That year, it was Sister C, Brothers Osborne, and Day + Shay.

I was involved with a few other organizations on campus, but Spring Event was by far my favorite. I miss the excitement of knowing who it is before the rest of the campus and then working to promote the show and then working the night before the show to set up the stage and then the entire day-of. So I now know how to dismantle a stage after midnight. Thankfully, they always got us pizza.

So now I’m looking for my “thing”. One of my friends and I are going to start a book club soon with one of her friends, so that’ll be fun. I doubt I can call blogging (aka yelling about sports) my “thing” but it’s fun to reminisce a little about all of the different things I’ve done over the years.