The Grinch That Stole Cliffmas

This Christmas, my mom gave my brother and me a gift.  It was card with money in to put towards the trip we were planning on taking to see the Phillies at Spring Training in March.  The card read, “Merry Cliffmas” in reference to the Phillies latest acquisition, superstar pitcher Cliff Lee.  That day made it seem really definite that David and I would be seeing the Phillies come March.  Last week, our “Cliffmas” gift seemed to be the gift that kept on giving when the roster for this weekend’s games was announced and we found out that not only would be we actually get to see Cliff Lee pitch but also 2010 Cy Young award winner, Roy Halladay.

Yesterday, we finally got to enter Bright House Field and our Spring Training adventure began.  Our day started early when we arrived at 10am, a half an hour before the gates opened which allowed us to get a prime spot in the front row to watch batting practice.  Surrounded by kids and adults taking pictures and hoping for autographs, we felt pretty lucky to be standing where we were.   Roy Halladay pitched a great game, our seats were amazing and everything went perfectly.  We even started plotting all the things we would have to do the next day and the beauty of it all was that we still had a whole second day to make sure we really did spring training right.  Or so we thought.

This morning, my boss called me and told me that instead of reporting to the baseball game today, I had report to Orlando to for my meeting by 1 rather than my originally planned time of 5pm.  Bye bye spring training.  So long Cliff Lee.  My dream birthday trip was over way before I expected.  The Grinch had officially stolen Cliffmas. I made it to Orlando and realized that I have absolutely nothing to do until my 7pm reception so I thought I would use this time to reflect a little bit on my less than stellar day.

As I sit here, in the middle of the afternoon looking like a sad little girl in the new Cliff Lee t-shirt I bought just for today, I find myself trying to find something that I can take from this heartbreak.  I’ve been through the tears of disappointment and the yelling fits of rage and now I’m on to a half baked attempted at finding the silver lining. 

The only thing I can seem to come up with is that you should never put off till tomorrow what can be done today.  Even when you think you will get a second chance, you shouldn’t wait to do the things you want to do.

"Too many people miss the silver lining because they are too busy looking for gold." - Author Unknown