I just heard a conversation on the radio about the World Cup. It threw me instantly back to high school when I was madly in love with the goalie on our team for soccer. He was out of my league, of course, and you know, thought of me as a little sister.
How awkward high school is – just so awkward, and weird, and unnerving, and so confusing.
He would be emotionally devastated if we lost; if he missed a goal. If they got to penalty kicks and he allowed one through, oh my gosh, he would beat himself up for hours. He would just torment himself.
Subconsciously, I’m sure, at the time, I realized I’m not strong enough for this game.
I’m not strong enough for the emotional roller coaster of watching these grown men be destroyed. I mean, I get that they’re having fun, and a lot of it is team-building, and buddy-roe. I don’t know. People get super excited. But, then people get pretty upset and call players names. I cared for someone who hurt when he felt like he failed the team, the school, the heritage and lineage of players before him – honestly, I am guessing. It seemed so deep.
The bus ride home, and everyone is quiet. Again – guessing. I’ve never been on a team sport. I am simply stark raving mad with empathy and I cry when I see a grown man cry.
Sylvester Stallone at the end of Rambo completely did me in. I had tears streaming down my face. This massive, hulk of a strong man, sobbing like a heartbroken child.
It was cinematically meant to give the viewers a gutpunch, an absolute suckerpunch, not a dry eye in the place. And it worked.
Strangely, I can watch historical dramas, and wars, and Vikings – conquests and kings. I can do that. Even though it can be brutal and gory. It’s removed by time. The heartbroken in me still reels when injustice is done, or women are silenced as a natural course. Oh, my hackles rise. But I can get invested in the story. I can even cry and get angry.
Big stories are a great release for pent up emotions, or ones you haven’t figured out names for yet, that are just running into walls in your brain, bouncing around, pell-mell, without an outlet, because you don’t even know what they’re trying to tell you. You know those ones? Those explode out of me at sad movies, or hard movies, or drama. Oh, the drama.
Maybe history gives me time and space to process what I’ve seen. The immediacy of the losses in real time, in sports, is what gets me. I don’t think I could follow and be who I am, a lover of wonder and beauty.
It’s not that I don’t like sports, it turns out. I don’t want to be devastated along with anyone hurting over a loss.
I am so my mother’s daughter – feeling sorry for the underdog, the one who lost by a hair, by a thousandth of a second. My heart breaks for them. So, I stay away from sports.
But I love the highlight reels. I love seeing someone soaring over the edge, or throwing their chest across the finish line. I love the group hugs of teammates. But in those elated moments, I’m always looking at the edges of the screen to see the ones with their heads hanging, falling to their knees on the field.
That is where my poet heart lands.
Photo by Matheus Protzen on Unsplash
Cover Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash
