RE: Growing Pains

So my resolve to take financial steps toward growing up was tested pretty hardcore this morning.

Some of you may know I am a big, big Yankees fan. As far back as I can remember, my Dad and I would sit in our backyard and listen to games on the radio under a willow tree, and he would buy bags of peanuts for us to shell and eat to provide some real Saturday baseball ambiance. He took me to a Syracuse Chiefs old-timers game when I was 7, which was my first (minor league) professional ballpark experience. I still have the game program at home. Still, baseball didn't stick with me right away. It wasn't until I was in high school that I really began to pay attention to the Yanks, but as my love for the team has grown in adulthood, I remember those Saturday afternoons under the willow tree very vividly. Despite many bad memories of my father, I will always be thankful he shared his love of baseball with me, even if I didn't appreciate it at the time.

I never got to go to a Yankees game in person with my Dad. He passed away in 1997. Chances are, if he were still around, though, we still never would have gone together. I went to Yankee Stadium for the first time in the summer of 2001, part of a a gift for an ex-boyfriend's birthday. We saw them play the Mets and go into extra innings. When I first saw the field open up before my eyes as I walked to our seats, I held my breath. When the team ran onto the field for warm-ups, my eyes welled up, and of course I couldn't help thinking of my dad a little bit.

In 2003, I moved to New York City, and I try to get to at least one game in person every summer. A friend of mine (actually, the same ex from that game in 2001, who I have remained great friends with) approached me towards the close of the last season at Yankee Stadium about a group of friends trying to chip in and get season tickets for the new stadium for the 2009 season. Of course, I was enthused and told him I could spend up to a certain amount of money if he thought that would be worthwhile to the group.

It took until today for him to finally be contacted about our chance to get season tickets. Since he first approached me, the economy has tipped upside down, I went overboard on Christmas gifts for my family, and I made a promise to myself to pay down some debt. After crunching the numbers with my husband, he said I could do it if I really thought I would use the tickets. Which is really generous of him, since he is not a huge baseball fan, and most definitely not a Yankees fan. Of course I would use the tickets, but it would mean maxing out our credit card with the highest interest rate, and that makes me feel very uneasy.

It was a fork in the road for me. A place where I had to realize that what I technically could do, what I really wanted to do, is definitely not the adult thing to do. If I'm going to be serious about getting out of debt and growing up and preparing a future for the family I want, it is more important to have available credit than 2 tickets to 14 Yankees game in the upper deck. No matter how badly I want them, and no matter how nostalgic it makes me for that willow tree in our old backyard, this is my time to make my future.