On Friday, November 6, the 1A-3A State Championships for volleyball were held IN PRESCOTT!  My former high school team, Blue Ridge, is 3A and so I got to see my team!!  Anna, Shaw, and I (Shaw just wanted to come and be introduced!) met the team at Texas Roadhouse on Thursday night.  There were LOTS of hugs, I-miss-you’s, and stories that night.  It was great to see all of my girls!  All the while we were talking, a guy was there who was making balloon animals.  Of course, as much as we all want to be mature and grow up, it never actually happens, and so he ended up making probably twenty balloons just for the Blue Ridge team (and Shaw!).  The poor guy’s fingers must have felt like the rubber balloons he was endlessly twisting.  The shapes varied from a monkey to a Ninja Turtle to a frog to Spiderman!  They were very well done, let me tell you!

Flashbacks hit me hard the next day, which was game day at Prescott High School.  As a senior playing volleyball last year, I remember walking into the very same gym for the state tournament.  The enormity of the gym, the dark wooden beams overhead that looked like a pattern on the ceiling, the stands filled with parents and loved ones who’d come to wish me luck.  That was even the exact day that I met my current coach, Coach Meyer.  I remember looking up into the stands every few minutes, watching her take notes, and when Anna and I finally met her, Anna told her that volleyball “wasn’t her thing”!!  Well, she immediately took that back when she realized that this was the volleyball coach we were talking to, and proceeded to tell her that volleyball was her passion!!  Haha!

Anna and I signing our letters of intent.

This is a picture of my team last year, my senior year in high school.

The rest is history.  Like a deja vu, I imagined all this in the first two minutes I was in the gym.  Anna, Shaw, Laura and I (Blue Ridge was playing Laura’s alma mater, Fountain Hills) cheered our lungs out and had a great time.

After the game, which unfortunately gave Laura bragging rights on Anna and I, I was able to stay and talk with some of my best friends from high school.  We exchanged stories, jokes, the latest “who’s-with-who” news, and quoted movies.  I was so happy that I was able to meet up with them!  I LOVE MY GIRLS! 🙂

“People never know how special someone is until they leave, but maybe sometimes its important to leave, so they are given that chance to see how special that someone really is!”
–  Ali Nitka