No Regrets

* Okay, so I meant to post this blog last weekend but I completely forgot and so since I already wrote it I decided to go ahead and post it anyway. *

Last Friday night I went to an ECS football game. Maybe for other people this really wouldn’t be very remarkable but, in my case, I never thought that this would happen. First of all I don’t like football. I know most of ya’ll reading this probably think I’m crazy or something, but I honestly never understood the game. Usually, I will just stare blankly at the field and cheer whenever everyone else does. This can also be quite risky because, occasionally, I’ll hear the other side start cheering and accidentally yell some sort of encouraging phrase along with them. Needless to say, the people standing around me will glance over, looking at me as if I am absolutely insane and usually say something to that effect. I’m not against all sports though, just football. I don’t like the hitting and the confusing rules. I do enjoy watching soccer and basketball and even baseball sometimes, but football is just beyond me.

Now for reason two why I never thought I would go back to one of my high school’s football games. I really cannot stand the majority of the people in my grade at ECS. Also, most of the people that I could actually tolerate were guys and they were either on the football team or incredibly interested in the game. I usually went to every game though when I went to ECS. This is because if, for some odd reason, you did not go to the game, everyone in every one of your classes would accusingly ask you why on earth you weren’t there and then give you a detailed description of each point we scored and the different cheers we did. Most people would end this drawn-out play by play by encouraging you to attend next time and ensuring you that the team needed your support. Now, maybe it’s not like this at other schools, but ECS people are insane when football is concerned. I seriously doubt that “the team” would have played any better if I had been present and when I went to ECS I don’t think that the football team ever lost a game. Now that I think about this, its kind of interesting. I graduated from high school after 11th grade and before I left most of the football guys were like “how are we gonna win if you aren’t there to support us” and “If you leave now we’ll probably lose a lot” and stuff like that. This is interesting because now that I have left the ECS football team has had a pretty bad season this year compared to the last three years when I actually went to school there. Maybe I am lucky. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy going to the games because it was always either incredibly hot outside or freezing cold and I would usually just stand around talking to people that I didn’t like. Also, there are only so many times that you can go to the bathroom to apply lip gloss or check your hair before people begin to look at you strangely.

Okay, reason three. Every time that I went to a football game something bad happened to me. The first ECS football game I ever went to, in ninth grade, I got yelled at for quite some time by my best friend’s mom. I had lent her a non-trashy tube top and a pair of jeans before we went and when she arrived at the game her mother freaked out and blamed me for “leading her astray.” At another game my boyfriend at the time decided that he wanted to break things off and instead of telling me he decided to ignore me and avoid the “unnecessary confrontation.” One time I actually got food poisoning from a hotdog that I got at the game and spent the majority of the night trying to stand in spite of the intense stomach cramping and waves of nausea that I was experiencing. There were so many other unfortunate things that happened to me at football games and these things that I have mentioned are definitely not the worst, they are simply the occurrences that I am not to embarrassed to write about.

So anyway, I was at the ECS vs Briarcrest game last Friday night and I was wondering why on earth I consented to come. Sam’s best friend William plays for briarcrest and he asked us to come and support him with a big banner that said “The Bateman #16” on it. Sam and I had not been having very much success displaying this banner on the Briarcrest side so we decided to see if we could get the enthusiastic ECS student section to cheer for William. I guess it wasn’t that weird for Sam to talk to the ECS people because the people from his grade weren’t there but for me it was really strange. I saw my whole grade as seniors cheering in the stands and I knew that I was right in assuming that coming back to a game after I graduated early wasn’t a good idea. Sam and I stayed until the end of the game so we could talk to William. And in the meantime we were actually able to convince the ECS student section to hold up the banner and chant “William Bateman.” Just seeing ECS chant for a Briarcrest player was worth the whole awkward experience of seeing my grade again. I actually had a nice time talking to some various ECS people and that was really surprising. As Sam and I drove home though, we both agreed that we never wanted to go to an ECS football game again unless it was absolutely necessary. I think some good came out of this experience though. As I saw the people from the grade that I should have been in this year placing so much importance on a football game and behaving in the same way that they always have, I was reassured once again and for the most likely the last time that I did the right thing in graduating after 11th grade. I realized that I really don’t miss anything about high school and definitely am not missing out on anything by foregoing my senior year.