Page 40 of Between the Blue
Hockey?
It’s so far from what I ever envisioned myself working in.
I completely understand Tiffany’s reasoning for pushing me towards it. The connection of the Texas Storm to Natasha Collins isn’t something I ever could have seen coming. Working for her husband will certainly get me much closer to working for her than I currently am. But I just don’t know.
What if I’m terrible at photographing sports? I’ve been curating my own makeshift fashion editorials since I was in elementary school, but I know next to nothing about creating a story around a group of male athletes.
It’d be one thing if I knew a few things about hockey, but I knownothing. I’d be starting from scratch. I’d need to do so much research this weekend before starting just to not look entirely clueless coming up with social media captions and campaign ideas. Part of me wonders if that time could be spent this weekend desperately trying to track down an entirely different opportunity instead.
“I’m feeling…good,” I lie.
And, of course, Nana easily picks up on it.
“Are you sure about that?” she asks hesitantly. “What’s going on?”
“I’m just a little stressed. And have some things to figure out. It turns out my internship isn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line for a moment. “Oh, Sunny…” Nana trails off, and the gentle tone of her voice nearly makes mine crack as I say my next words.
“It’s fine. I’ll get it figured out,” I say, forcing the most confident tone I can.
“Of course you will,” Nana agrees instantly. “But–”
“Sorry, Nana,” I cut her off. “But I have to let you go. I just got to the gym. I’ll call you again soon.”
“Okay, kiddo,” she says. “I love you–”
“Love you too,” I mutter, hanging up the phone before she can say anything else.
I shove my phone into my gym bag as I take my final step down the stairs, robotically making my way to the women’s locker room as the gears in my head continue to spin every which way. I acknowledge a familiar dark blur in my peripheral vision as I turn the corner, but I don’t have the energy this morning to entertain it. My eyes stay glazed over until I make it inside the locker room.
I have to think of something.
Surely a workout will help to clear my head.
My workout does absolutely nothing to clear my head.
It probably doesn’t help that I went through it like a zombie. I found myself not even keeping track of my reps on multiple occasions. The whole thing went by like a blur. My eyes stayed on the floor basically the entire time, and everytime I looked up, it was like I was staring into an out-of-focus tunnel. My heartbeat was the only sound I was even able to acknowledge in my ears, regardless of the fact that I actually brought my headphones with me to the gym this morning and blasted Taylor Swift as loudly as I could the entire time without hurting my ears. I thought it might help.
It didn’t.
Even now as I hop into the locker room shower to rinse off, I’m not sure what my next move should be. You have to be strategic in the world I’m in.
The world I’mtryingto be in.
Photographers are a dime a dozen. There are thousands of people with the exact same dream as me. The last thing I’d want to do is set myself back by wasting valuable time gaining experience in a completely different field that doesn’t apply in the slightest. The thought of throwing away my lifelong aspirations of editorial fashion photography because I’ve pigeon-holed myself by having sports photos as the only thing recent and notable in my portfolio makes me sick to my stomach.
I know Tiffany was right about me not having much of a choice. That I need an internship credit to fulfill my program requirement this year. But I’m just so afraid to make the wrongdecision. I’m not impulsive. I don’t make choices on a whim. I’m a planner. A scheduler. An organizer. I always have been. So having one weekend– and a couple of days next week if I really want to push my luck– to decide my next move is terrifying.
Please, Addison. Just go to the game, I hear Tiffany’s voice echoing in my mind.
She wasn’t lying. Tickets to tonight’s Texas Storm preseason game were, in fact, in my inbox first thing this morning.
I’ve opened the email and stared at the attached tickets a dozen times now. The longer I stare at them, the more I try to convince myself that I’m excited about this opportunity. But after a few seconds, the truth sinks in.
I’m grateful, but I’m not excited. Because it’s not what I want. And I don’t know that it’s something I can even do.
I quickly finish getting dressed, shimmying into my sage green dress and slipping on my neutral wedge heels.
