We live here. Long enough that the Gateway Arch became part of the skyline instead of somewhere we actually went.
Then Tom’s boss and two coworkers came up from Dallas for a work trip. We planned the kind of evening we’d put together for visitors — the Arch grounds, dinner at Ballpark Village, a Cardinals game.
Halfway through it, I realized we should probably do this for ourselves more often.
The Evening
We met them at their hotel and took an Uber down to the Arch. Walked the grounds, took photos, stood at the edge of the river for a few minutes. It’s a genuinely beautiful park and we treat it like a landmark we’ve already checked off.
From there we walked over to Ballpark Village and had dinner at Cardinals Nation. When you walk in, one of the first things you see is the scoreboard from Game 6 of the 2011 World Series — Cardinals 10, Rangers 9 in 11 innings. David Freese, with the Cardinals down to their final strike, hit a game-tying two-run triple in the 9th before walking it off with a home run in the 11th. It’s widely considered one of the greatest World Series games ever played.
Tom’s coworkers are from Dallas. One of them is a serious sports fan. He saw the scoreboard. We noticed him noticing it.
We did not let it go unmentioned.
The Cardinals were playing Texas that night too — different stakes, same matchup. The Cardinals won. He was loudly, enthusiastically rooting for the wrong team in a stadium full of red the whole game. The Cardinals shot off fireworks after the final out. All three of them were out of their seats before the smoke cleared.
It was a great evening.
What I Kept Thinking on the Way Home
We don’t do this enough.
We have a major league baseball stadium twenty minutes from our house. We have the Gateway Arch. We have Ballpark Village with a good restaurant and a plaza built where an old ballpark used to stand. And most weeks, none of it registers as somewhere we might actually go.
It takes visitors from out of town to remind us what’s here.
I think about that sometimes — how we’ll drive across three states to explore somewhere new, spend real money to be in a place we’ve never been, make an effort to actually see things. And then we’ll ignore what’s in our own city for months at a time because it doesn’t feel like a destination. It just feels like where we live.
Nobody decided not to go to the Arch. We just hadn’t decided to go.
That’s how so many good things quietly disappear from ordinary weeks. Not because you chose against them. Because you didn’t choose anything at all.
This is the thing I keep coming back to lately. The life you’re hoping to have more of is usually closer than you think. It just requires someone to actually decide.
That Wednesday in June, visitors from Dallas decided for us. The evening was exactly what it should have been — good food, a baseball game, a little Cardinals history rubbed in at the right moment, fireworks over the stadium on a summer day in St. Louis
We live here. We should probably act like it more often.
If You’re Planning an Evening Downtown
If you’re in St. Louis and haven’t been downtown for a game in a while — go this summer. Start at the Arch, walk to Ballpark Village for dinner, and head into the game from there. It makes the whole night feel like an experience instead of simply attending a baseball game.
The things worth seeing are still here. You just have to decide to see them.
This is the kind of thinking behind the Fully Lived Framework — the idea that a fuller life is usually right in front of you, waiting for someone to choose it. The beta opens this fall. Get on the waitlist here.
Sounds like a great time.
Thanks! It was a lot of fun, especially seeing the city through their eyes!