Day: April 20, 2022

I was able to muster enough mindfulness this morning to start the blog before 10 pm. That is, generally speaking, a good sign. Once upon a time I wasn’t even aware of the construct of time and how it relates to performance. I was me and I was solid no matter the hour. Now, as I creep painfully towards 50 yrs of consciousness, I am mindful of trying to get work done while my brain still functions. I remain aware that my brain may in fact be in decline and my best physical years may also be behind me. These are unfortunate realizations and, quite possibly, truths. The days, the thoughts, the moments, all take on weight and that burden all too often brings me to my knees.

Perhaps it is the dichotomy that troubles me. I have five boys still living with me ranging from 20-12. None have any sense of burden. They while away their hours playing video games. Even the two with jobs work very little and play very long, and I am jealous. I too have spent close to 120 hours over the past few months diving deep into a game, so that jealousy is largely misplaced. The fact is, I feel like a kid in every way but reality. I feel like I should have time and energy and feel free, yet I don’t.

Is that the barnacles of responsibility creating drag through the waters of daily life? Is it that I’m not publishing right now? Is it that my teaching career feels both stagnant and contradictory to my personal life? Perhaps all of these things do add up. When I was little my dad explained that I should not lie. he told me that you carry lies with you and they weigh you down through life. He said the work of maintaining a lie is so much harder than and worth so much less than whatever you think you get from that lie. I was a kid. I was lying about baseball stats to show I was better than I was. Yet the lesson resonated and reverberated in a larger way. The choices you make in life do carry weight. They do make your day to day harder because you must live the responsibility of those choices. This is, I believe, what it means to grow up. We grow into the chains that tether us.

When teammates fight each other, everyone loses. I’ve had to think about that a lot over the last few weeks as my kid is the target of a lot (if not all) of the violence happening between players. He got into his 3rd scuffle this week and each with a different player. I’d be a fool to think he isn’t part of the problem. He has an ego and really believes in himself. Unfortunately there are several kids on the high school team that don’t believe in him and want to ‘put him in his place.’

None of this–nothing in his ego-driven attitude should lead to violence. Yet here we are in a situation where he will probably need to transfer to another school–throwing his younger brother’s future into disarray–in order to have a chance to avoid teammates stepping to him constantly as is happening now. To make matters worse, the social media is expansive and toxic and includes one of the fights, which is only making him more of a target for players who want to make a name stepping to a starter. None of this is good for him as a young man trying to find his way. It is worse for him as a player trying to give his all. Why would he want to and how could he if he’s concerned about being hit by a fellow player or robbed again while his teammates watch the robber and laugh it off like it doesn’t matter.

He’s in a toxic situation. Unfortunately, there is no clear way forward beyond leaving. So what happens after that?