A long film session following a loss...

Here I am, 1 am and wide awake.  I hit a wall yesterday in my recovery - falling asleep around 5 or so on Tuesday night and only managing to stay awake for the hour or so it took for me to cancel classes on Wednesday knowing that I had no stamina for it.  But this early Thursday morning, my brain is in overdrive.   So I'm here blogging now, because at 1 am, I just can't sit in bed any longer and think about all that random crap that enters my head.

Instead, allow me to bring up something that I think is related to the topic of this blog - in part to get my mind off of this insomnia and in part because I've been struggling with the topic since my last post anyway.  I've been trying to decide what I'm really addicted to - sports or competition itself.  When I told my parents about this blog last weekend, they immediately assumed that I was talking about competition in general, not just my sports teams.  My dad told me stories about how when I was less than 2 years old, I hated losing so much that I would study games so that I wouldn't lose again.  Less than 2, and I hated losing so much started working on strategy.   I remember in 1st grade storming out of my gifted classes when I lost to the older kids.  I remember a phase around 4th grade when I studied chess so I wouldn't lose, even though I really hate chess.  I have gotten better at losing (I think), but the sting of it still sits with me for a long time after.  I can't stop myself from dissecting every move I made to find the moment when my odds of winning took the biggest hit.  Ask anyone who knows me well, and they'll tell you that I take losing and criticism hard.

I share this with you because I think it's part of the roots of some of my sports issues.  While I am satisfied with winning,  I hate losing.  The thrill of victory is less than the agony of defeat.  Success is expected.  Losing is intolerable, even when I can gracefully hide it.  And sometimes surprises me because I'll get those emotions when I don't even realize I'm competing.  It plays out as sports fandom with the teams I root for (see: Super Bowl XLV, et al.).  It plays out in my professional life as ambition, a quality that is tolerated or even desired (in moderation), but often drives me to try too much.  It definitely shows in  family dynamics, otherwise what else would family sit-coms discuss?  It can show up in a partnership or marriage - something I try to be very mindful to avoid, because competition here destroys the harmony of a partnership.  But it played out in a unique place tonight: in the topic of starting a family.

(Disclaimers:  At this point, I need to say a few things. I know that there's a lot that goes into the decision to start a family, and that honestly, I'm not sure if there has been a point in my 5+ years of marriage that I could point to and identify a missed moment. I also assure you that I would not bring a child into the world just to even up a scorecard that only I can know about. And I'm not going to discuss anything about the many conversations my wife and I have had on the subject - these are my thoughts and emotions only.  Her feelings on the subject are not at all a part of what I am discussing here.  This is a sliver of that particular pie, and the only one remotely germane to this blog on my reflections on sports)

In response to the holiday letter we sent out at Valentines Day, we heard from a few old friends (some of whom I will admit that I either dated briefly or wanted to date once upon a time) that they were expecting or had just given birth. I added up the total of all the friends I know through these responses, and facebook connections, and other communications and I realized that I felt like everyone was pregnant or a parent already but me.  I felt angry.  I have been telling my friends that I am happy for them (which I truly am), while hiding the disgust that I am woefully behind on the baby-making scorecard.

I feel like I've experienced enough of life to be a good father and yet, I'm not.  I want to tell you that it bothers me only because I'm ready to be a dad. But I can't. I can't tell you that, because it is also about knowing that so many of my friends from high school and college (and now grad school) are starting or have in some cases finished their child rearing.  I can't tell you that, because of my immediate family I'm the oldest  to start a family by almost 10 years and counting.  I want to tell you that those are not factors, but they are.  It makes me feel very foolish and immature admitting that, because those are all about competing with myself and some internal standard that I have no rational reason to hold.

I've let competition enter into something where it doesn't belong.   I know I'm not unique in this (see your local supermarket checkout line tabloids for many egregious examples).  But, I need to somehow make peace with not meeting the standards I set, despite the fact that the lesson I feel sports often teach (and that I guess the lesson I was born with) is that there is no value in falling short.  Intellectually, I know that there is value to be found in failure to meet expectations, but emotionally, I am not often willing to even look for any of that value.  Certainly not when it comes to sports competition on the field, but also not in life's competitions - large or small. 

I'm beginning to think that this blog is another post-loss film session in my head - causing me to lose sleep trying to figure out when I let my hatred of losing change my approach to life, and deciding if, or rather by how much, it transcends what a team I like did in a game.