Final game thoughts

Was thinking about how I feel/felt about the game last night. Conflicted is the word I kept coming back to. The only analogy I could think of was that this year was like my senior year in college. Bear with me, here.

Senior year of college. Probably the best year of my (quasi-)adult life. Fun, great memories, surrounded by friends, little responsibility. That's how this year has felt, despite the poor result on the field. It's been a fun year celebrating the Stadium's past. I got to enjoy the All Star game from the Stadium with my brother. I got to take in a game with my brother-in-law and father-in-law. I got to take my wife and boys on an up-close-and-personal tour of the Stadium that they (and I) will always remember.

The last month of the season was not unlike the last two weeks of college: finals. Not fun. Stressful. Reality slowing creeping in that the run is over. The finals are done, the partying is all but over (last night).

Today, reality is here. I woke with it smacking me in the face, much like it did that final day of college. Today's the day I packed up and hit the road. I stuffed my Jeep with everything worth taking and a bunch of stuff not worthy at all, but I wanted my momentos. I knew I'd be back to visit but it'd never be the same. I'd be older and I wouldn't know the students like when I was one. I'd just be some alumni, trying to relive the past once more. Today is that "first day of the rest of your life", like it or not.

I've hung onto some those momentos, but the best ones remain in my memory, reliving with my friends who are forever cast in those memories.

The Yanks season is all but over, less the last few games yet to conclude in other ballparks. Next year, they/we begin anew in a sparkling new cathedral, just as I had to eventually go get that first job. TNYS is magnificent and will be wonderful to go to. Will it lack the sense of history? Maybe, possibly, probably. Time marches on.

I loved college and I've been back a few times in the years that have passed and it was never quite the same. But my life has progressed, too, and I'm thankful for that. Progress. TNYS represents that progress. I've gotten past the closing of the Stadium as an emotional event. TNYS will create its own legacy, mystique and aura, history, moments.

I'm not tearful; all things come to some conclusion. It was a great show last night, not unlike that last party before packing your car to head home when the college career ended.

We'll have those memories, those moments, that history. That won't change. We'll just have a nicer place to make some new ones, and I am good with that.