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Woman Driver
Apr. 19th, 2018 07:43 amThis content appears in its edited form on YouTube. Other than that, the message it contains speaks for itself...
LPK
Dreamwidth
4.19.2018
Apr. 19th, 2018
This content appears in its edited form on YouTube. Other than that, the message it contains speaks for itself...
LPK
Dreamwidth
4.19.2018
The Loss Sinks In
Apr. 19th, 2018 11:00 pmI've kept myself busy, today, to keep myself from thinking too much.
Inevitably, though, it's going to happen.
The thoughts come, reality sinks in, feelings engage, and then.
Or the phone rings and the reality is in your ear. Or the text message comes and it's there in your hands.
In any case, the effect is the same: reality sinking in, life taking you down again, another loss against...
Against some distantly-remembered, inconsequential win.
More on this, maybe, later...
LPK
Dreamwidth
4.19.2018
Inevitably, though, it's going to happen.
The thoughts come, reality sinks in, feelings engage, and then.
Or the phone rings and the reality is in your ear. Or the text message comes and it's there in your hands.
In any case, the effect is the same: reality sinking in, life taking you down again, another loss against...
Against some distantly-remembered, inconsequential win.
More on this, maybe, later...
LPK
Dreamwidth
4.19.2018
1 - Waiting, for Never
Apr. 19th, 2018 11:18 pmThursday is the weekday night when I'm accustomed to getting home kind of late. It's been that way for at least two years, maybe three.
And there's always been a night like that, one or two of them, every week, for the past 10 years.
Ten years of weekday nights, one or two of them, followed by a Saturday morning or a Sunday afternoon. And sometimes both.
Because that's how long the grandson has been playing soccer, starting in Kindergarten. And this would've been, well, the start of his tenth year.
And it wasn't just weekday practices and weekend games, but three years of spring break camps, summer camps, and fall soccer academies up at Syracuse University. (Including 10 weeks of goalie training with an SU star with who later became the starting keeper for the MLS's Toronto FC.)
And the tournaments, countless tournaments, at venues scattered across Central New York and beyond. Indoors, outdoors, blazing heat, freezing rain, all of it for this kid who showed such promise from the very first time that he stepped onto a soccer pitch, in his very first pair of brand new cleats, carrying a size 4 ball so new that it didn't even have a grass stain.
But as of yesterday, that's all over and I'm still not sure why.
For sure, I'd felt it coming. The inexplicably flagging interest, the momentary rebellion fomented a couple of years ago with a bad-actor, a not-so-good friend, that almost cost him a place on the middle school team.
The one that was caught in time because I was there to reason with him and advocate for him but was unable to save the friend who didn't want to be saved anyway. Just wanted someone with him in that moment when he threw away this chance at something good in life, tried to throw it away for himself and my grandson.
Which I'm now thinking might've been the start of this unhappy ending. Which comes, ironically, following the weekend when his team wrapped up the season with a tie and three wins to take the championships in two age groups. A weekend when he was absent due to illness, but...
So now, I'm trying to get my head around all of it, all the memories, all the times when soccer was our salvation, his and mine, because there wasn't anyone or anything else.
Those times when it was just the two of us and that ball, now grown to an adult-size 6, now pavement scuffed and grass stained.
Now sitting in his bag, in the back of my car. Waiting, for next Thursday. Waiting, for never...
LPK
Dreamwidth
4.19.2018
And there's always been a night like that, one or two of them, every week, for the past 10 years.
Ten years of weekday nights, one or two of them, followed by a Saturday morning or a Sunday afternoon. And sometimes both.
Because that's how long the grandson has been playing soccer, starting in Kindergarten. And this would've been, well, the start of his tenth year.
And it wasn't just weekday practices and weekend games, but three years of spring break camps, summer camps, and fall soccer academies up at Syracuse University. (Including 10 weeks of goalie training with an SU star with who later became the starting keeper for the MLS's Toronto FC.)
And the tournaments, countless tournaments, at venues scattered across Central New York and beyond. Indoors, outdoors, blazing heat, freezing rain, all of it for this kid who showed such promise from the very first time that he stepped onto a soccer pitch, in his very first pair of brand new cleats, carrying a size 4 ball so new that it didn't even have a grass stain.
But as of yesterday, that's all over and I'm still not sure why.
For sure, I'd felt it coming. The inexplicably flagging interest, the momentary rebellion fomented a couple of years ago with a bad-actor, a not-so-good friend, that almost cost him a place on the middle school team.
The one that was caught in time because I was there to reason with him and advocate for him but was unable to save the friend who didn't want to be saved anyway. Just wanted someone with him in that moment when he threw away this chance at something good in life, tried to throw it away for himself and my grandson.
Which I'm now thinking might've been the start of this unhappy ending. Which comes, ironically, following the weekend when his team wrapped up the season with a tie and three wins to take the championships in two age groups. A weekend when he was absent due to illness, but...
So now, I'm trying to get my head around all of it, all the memories, all the times when soccer was our salvation, his and mine, because there wasn't anyone or anything else.
Those times when it was just the two of us and that ball, now grown to an adult-size 6, now pavement scuffed and grass stained.
Now sitting in his bag, in the back of my car. Waiting, for next Thursday. Waiting, for never...
LPK
Dreamwidth
4.19.2018