Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.

I'm not sure what is more depressing. The fact I haven't blogged since October 15, or that  its Kobe's last season in the NBA and the Lakers are sucking. Add in Duke losing to Oregon, Abby Wambach retiring, and the lack of a Panera in the state of Utah and all are valid reasons to be quite depressed. Since October my life got  crazy busy. Being a head basketball coach, working full time, being a single mother (dog/cat moms are moms too), on top of trying to get skinny I can honestly say I haven't had time to sit and blog my thoughts. Ok that's a lie. I have had time. But the little free time I have I have been reading. Plot twist... I love to read. People act to surprised when I say this. When I say I love to read I legitimately mean I love reading books. The fact I can read 2 paragraphs and the following happen:

1. I end up in a whole new world.
2. I forget the problems of my life and the sometimes crazy world we live in.
And 3. I manage to come up with so many different voices for the characters that my creativity  just blow my mind.

So I've been reading. And I've read quite a lot actually. I'm trying to average a book every 10 days... I don't just read, I read fast as well. Need a good book? Well I have a ton I could recommend and will even give you a synopsis free of charge. I swear some days I think I need to become a publisher or a writer of some sorts just because I love to read and write. But I also am afraid that will ruin it for me you know? It's like growing up and you have your best friend everyone thinks you're dating and you're not. And you end up thinking well maybe I should date them they're my best friend, but you don't want to ruin it with kissing and all that relationship crap. That's how I feel sometimes when I feel the need to actually do something besides reading and blogging for entertainment. I don't want to ruin it.

Anyways... I'm currently sitting on an airplane flying home from Indianapolis and I wanted to talk about dreams. Not like the dreams you have at night. My dreams usually consist of me owning many animals usually a dragon, sloth, lion, bear, multiple St. Bernard's, etc. But dreams. Like how Michelle (my biological mother) dreams that one day Lavell Edwards Stadium will have caffeinated Diet Coke so we don't have to sneak them into BYU Football games  anymore. Or like my brother Corbin wishes to have biceps like former Senator Schwarzenegger. Dreams. Some dreams are realistic. Some aren't. Some dreams come true exactly how we wanted, and some don't quite take the path we expected. That's the dream I want to talk about right now. The dream you have... That doesn't work out. It happens, just in a round about way that you probably aren't too happy about. So this all makes sense we are going to use my dreams. The dreams of 14 year old Alexis because those dreams are a lot more exciting and realistic than the dreams of my 26 year old self (pet dragon, acceptance letter to Hogwarts, finding out Lagertha Lothbrook is my great great grandma...). When I was 14 years old I as a freshman at Timpview. I was sitting at this banquet for the Nike Tournament of Champions. I didn't really know anything about women's college basketball. All I knew was Steve went through a job change and my family had just converted from Utah to BYU fans and I wasn't happy. Steve didn’t really consider my future plans into this whole job change. I was going to play for Elaine Elliott at the University of Utah because she had been telling me since I was 7 that I was going to play for her. That's all I knew. So sitting at this banquet the key note speaker who was some great basketball player I hadn’t heard of. And that the speaker was none other than Diana Taurasi. Well I honestly couldn't tell you the details of what Diana said in her speech. All I remember was by the time she was done, I wanted to be her. I wanted to go to the University of Connecticut. I wanted to play for Coach Geno Auriemma. And I wanted to go to the final four and win national championships and go to the WNBA. While at this tournament I had a good showing  and a not too shabby freshman high school season. Started every game. Had a few double doubles. Made it to the state championship and lost. That summer I worked hard. I traveled with a club team. Played with my high school team. I was set on going to UCONN still. Then set back one happened. An avulsed deltoid and a shattered ankle during the first week of fall practice. I came back from the injury. Traveled all summer. You would never know I had shattered it that previous season. The letters and offers poured in. Utah, UCLA, UNLV, Colorado, Gonzaga, TCU... But no UCONN. Not yet at least right? I felt like a celebrity and I won't lie, my pride got the best of me a handful of times. The end of the summer I committed to the University of Utah. I after all was going to play for Elaine Elliott like I had always planned, and if Geno offered me I would cross that bridge when and if it happened. I was pretty high on life. Fifteen years old and already committed to a D1 one program. Then set back number two. Torn ACL, MCL, Meniscus. Terrible triad as my doctor called it. This injury happened and all the major schools backed off. After some conversations with my parents and some tears and frustrated exchanges of words I decommitted from the University of Utah because a new offer had come in. Guess what... It wasn't UCONN... It was BYU. And while it wasn't the offer I had been waiting for, it was the one my parents were waiting for. During the exchange of frustrated words and tears I realized that I wasn't going to play at UCONN. As Steve puts it (Michelle's husband and my biological father) I was a big fish in a small pond. Why go be a small fish in a big pond so I could get eaten up? Why not be the one doing the eating? So I committed to Brigham Young University where I went on to play my college career. Consider the UCONN dream… Shattered. But it's ok. Life goes on and basketball goes on. I continued with life accepted that UCONN wasn’t an option and began my college career at BYU. Which was plagued with injuries as well. Compartments Syndrome during my redshirt year was the only injury I would have. I was sure of it. Well if any of you know anything about me you know I was sooooo wrong. 

I was soon diagnosed with Stage 4 Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and that was the downfall and really the end of my college and basketball career. As much as I wish old lady pick up and Rec ball counted it doesn't.  

Well obviously that whole "Be the next Diana Taurasi and go to UCONN and the final four and win a national championship or two and have Geno tell me to get on the line daily" dream didn't work out. Clearly. But guess what? The dream came true. Kind of. I've spent the last 5 days at the NCAA Women's Final Four. A dream I've had for the last 13 years of my life came true. I was surrounded by basketball greats. I saw Geno make history and Stewie win her fourth national title. I was right there during the whole game and the post game interviews and the cutting down the nets. I was there. Would I have much rather been in their spot? Actively participating as opposed to sitting on the fifth row drinking an overpriced water bottle? Well yes obviously. But everything happens for a reason. Obviously there’s a reason I didn’t end up being the next Diana Taurasi. I’m also sure there’s a reason I ended up at BYU and not Utah. There’s a reason I got cancer and was plagued with injuries my whole basketball career. There’s also a reason Chick Fil A only serves breakfast till 10:30 but we can’t know the underlying reasons to everything all the time.

I look back and I am so thankful that things went the way they have. If I had ended up my dreams coming true I would have been diagnosed with cancer 3,000 miles away from home. I wouldn’t have had a trainer who knew me as well as my family history well enough to see the red flags. I wouldn’t have had been 30 minutes away from the leading research cancer hospital in the world and the team of Doctors and Nurses who saved my life. I wouldn’t have met my best amigos. I wouldn’t have got to see my siblings sporting events. And I wouldn’t have been able to learn lessons and be where I am today if I had ended up anywhere besides BYU. Now dreams… We all have them. Big, small, realistic, unrealistic, we all have dreams. Dreams are meant to followed just like how rules are meant to be broken. SIKE. Bad motto. But by all means, if you have a dream you need to follow it. Especially if it's something you want. Do anything and everything you can to make it happen. And if life has something different in store just remember it's ok. Life goes. And for all  you know your dream may come true maybe just not in the way you expected it to. And if it doesn’t that's the best part about dreams, you can always come up with new ones.