Failure

There are some days when you look at the people around you and you think you haven't done much with your life. I'm having one of those days.

It's because of my journalism lab. We interviewed our partners as practice for the camera interview we'll be conducting. My partner didn't want to fill me in on anything so my little speech in front of the class wasn't so great. Her's was a hit, but only because I fed her the story I knew people would want to hear - racing.

I stood up there and the class asked me questions, turning me into a super star for a minute. But I couldn't help thinking how can I stand up here and allow them to think I'm so amazingly cool when BC and JL have accomplished so much more than me?

I live one town over from BC's family and they used to live in CA not too far from us. Our families are friends, not terribly close, but we'll say hi and stop and talk if we see each other. BC got a Nationwide ride back in '08, but the team got rid of that car so now he's just back in sprint cars and midgets. He's won a handful of national races and all this crazy stuff. He's completely independent and owns an apartment in North Carolina. He's only a year older than me.

JL lived on the East coast so we never raced against each other, but one time we went out to the Eastern Grands and he raced against my brother - before I was really into racing. He moved up through the ranks so quickly. Win one championship, move on to the next level of racing. He now races in Nascar. Had to wait to get into Nationwide because he wasn't 18 when he was signed to a team. Last year he took over the Home Depot sponsorship and the No. 20 car as well. He won a race too. He is my age, just a few weeks younger, literally.

Moving into another of my favorite sports, we have SC, captain of the Penguins at 20. He was in the Stanley Cup finals, leading his team through an extremely tough playoff season, at 20 years old. They lost that year, came back to win the next. He's 22 now and it just stuns me what he has accomplished at such a young age. He entered the NHL when he was 18! Just skipped the college playing part. Skipped being in the development teams. Oh, be the highest scorer on the team? Sure, no problem. Playoff season? Yeah, I can get you there. Oh, want a rematch against Detroit for the cup? Yeah, let's win it.

It just makes me look at my life and wonder where I could be. An Olympic ice skater, about to wrap up the end of her career? The classier version of DP? (Congrats on your 6th place Arca finish. Like that's anything to brag about, but it's all you hear about racing.) Even though I won awards for my photos in high school, I haven't done anything in college. I feel like I just should be more accomplished and I'm not. I feel like a failure. I feel like I didn't capitalize on the options that were out there for me. And now I'm just stuck in this ho-hum life, looking at what other have, wishing I had it too.

Anyone else get like this sometimes?