The chosen path
The following is a submission from OFD Community member, Farsdahl.
I am in the TV room as the harsh red and silver light of the end of the game burns into my retinas. My daughter has already gone upstairs, but my wife, ever supporting, watches the end unfold with me. The last time I turned off an ND game before the clock read all zeros was in 2007, and I’m not breaking that streak today. I’m feeling…what? I can’t quite tell. I’ve accepted the fact of it, and I’m beyond proud of how far our guys have come, and…something. It’s a hollow feeling, right below my throat. I need sleep. I have to get up in a few hours for work. I don’t think sleep’s going to come easy; I’m still feeling the nervous energy of the last month in all my extremities, and those three fingers of Scotch at halftime are still screwing with my head.
I’m in bed as the alarm goes off again…again…again. My side of the bed is torn apart from all my over-turning. I think I probably did get some good sleep, thank you melatonin, but it’s not enough. It’s Tuesday. Of course it’s a Tuesday. Such days always seem to fall on a Tuesday. A Norse god gets his hand bit off, and for his trouble he gets the lousiest day of the week named after him. Election days are Tuesdays. The 1929 stock market crash was on a Tuesday. Microsoft releases all of its software patches on Tuesdays. Catholics go to confession on Tuesdays. Losers of championship games must always face the hard, unforgiving dawn of Tuesday and decide whether they can get away with just staying in bed. I can’t. I get out of bed. That hollow feeling from last night has now taken on an unpleasant, heavy, sour quality and is sinking further into me, carving out a divot right behind my sternum. Life goes on.
I’m at my desk, dialed into an all-hands meeting that I’m not really paying any attention to. I really need an engaging, distracting project, something where I can make a list of a dozen action items and spend the rest of the week crossing them off. Endorphin loves crossing things off of action item lists. Instead, I’m in all-hands meetings, so I have something I can put on my timesheet. Endorphin knows no home in my soul, just an itchy, aching angst that seeks distraction. I’m not thinking about anything, so my right index finger takes over and clicks on the OFD link on my bookmarks bar. When it loads a half-second later, that angst blooms into sharp, painful needles. I’m nowhere near ready yet. I can’t face it.
I’m still at my desk. It’s now Saturday, and I’m covering part of the weekend for our review team as they strive to meet a deadline. I’m supposed to be running some QC searches. I’m not. My thoughts linger on kicks bouncing off uprights, and runs stuffed, and defensive backs desperately, vainly trying to close the distance, and Rylie Mills on crutches. I wonder when the time might come when I can face the internet, or read the news, or wear a shirt with ND on it again. In 2013, I made a point of wearing my The Shirt when my wife and I went to a movie the day after, because a real fan is still proud of his team when they lose. This time I can’t. I really hope there will come a time when I’ll feel good about wearing one again. I think I just have to wear one to get it over with. Maybe tomorrow when we go to the grocery store.
I’m working on two new review projects. It’s mid-April, and one of my teammates has had to take an extended leave of absence after her twin sister died. Man up. Your team needs you. Just a month or two ago, you were moping about not having enough to do. It’s better to be too busy than not busy enough. Right. Aphorisms are only going to get me so far, and I’m past them at this point. I need something beyond today to look forward to, and the men’s basketball team really isn’t doing it any more. What about…? I mean, it’s been three months, right? How long do I continue to wallow? Wait, the Blue-Gold game was just this past weekend, right? Who’s going to be our QB? CJ Carr did well, and Kenny did almost as well. I love me some Steve Angeli, but the guy had no sense for the rush. He saved our bacon against Penn State, though. Oof, there it is again; that festering ache. It still hurts. I haven’t been able to post anything on any of the fan sites, and I miss my people, but…not yet. I can’t.
I’m at our community garden with my daughter. It’s the end of April. I forgot to order my onion sets from the nursery on time, so now I’m poking half-inch-deep holes at precise four-inch intervals and carefully placing one or two onion seeds in each hole, as my daughter follows behind me, delicately smoothing over each hole. It’s nice being outside. I can empty my mind and just give myself over to the process. I can hear red-winged blackbirds and American robins and one particularly screechy hawk, and the overcast sky and stiff breeze are a bracing tonic. My thoughts wander towards work, and a project that just got pushed to early June due to a hiring freeze on new contractors. Last time I was on site with this client was…when was it? 2022 or 2023? What happened that year? Was that Coach Freeman’s first year, or second? First – it was 2022. Coach Freeman. There’s that feeling again. Not nearly as bad as three months ago, but it’s still there, still in that hollow space that it carved into my chest. Still there. Where did our guys go in the draft? I pull out my phone. Benjamin Morrison went in the second round. Riley Mills was in the fifth. Both of them would have been first-rounders if they’d been healthy. If. If. If. Stop it.
I’m in a brightly-lit office space buried deep within an industrial building at the client site. It’s the end of June, right before the Fourth of July holiday break, and the sound of heavy rain and the smell of hundreds of old, slightly damp cardboard boxes makes me wish I were home. Of nine temp workers who were supposed to show up, I get two. But Bill, my client contact, is as pleasant and grateful as he always is, and our two contractors are turning out to be hard workers, and interesting people to boot. One even likes gardening. I note to myself to take a video of our plot to show him. It’s late, and the team’s gone home. It was a good first day. I feel…what? Lighter? It’s good to be working with real people again, rather than a thumbnail on an IM thread. I feel like I have something to look forward to. Maybe I’ll take a couple weeks in August off. Maybe I’ll take the family down to Washington for a family vacation in November during fall break. Maybe I could check for tickets…maybe I could…. What’s our schedule this year? Woof, that’s right, it’s gonna be a nasty opening, isn’t it? Miami’s had our number on the road for decades now, and A&M is gonna be out for revenge. Still, if we get past both of them, it could be…
…wait. Hang on. Just one sec. Am I going to do this to myself again? Do I have it in me to endure this all over? Am I going to let myself fall hard for a team that – let’s face it – is probably, maybe almost certainly, just going to end one more season with an L?
I’m staring at my last entry. Will I? I mean, I don’t have to…right? What if I just decided not to care so much? There was a time I didn’t. Why can’t I just be happy with the drama of the match, the beauty of the sport, the spectacle of the gladiatorial combat? I loved this game differently once, as a simple, brutal game, where young men test themselves against each other with bone and muscle and blood and pain, on fields as much dirt and chalk as grass…a field like the one I played on, decades ago, still clear and alive in my memory, the taste of sweat on my mouthguard, the ache of cheek pads pressing on my jaw, the sting of a new gash on my left forearm as it mixes with mud. That game..that blessed game. Why do I care so differently now?
Because I am a fan. I was born again to the sport as a Notre Dame fan on August 28, 1999 in section 32 of Notre Dame Stadium, and I am re-born to it over and over again with the pure cathartic joy that comes only from every score and every victory, a joy known only by me and my brother and sister fans. I pay for this with that same empty, hollow bitterness after every loss, a cost which I bear willingly, week after week, year after year, with no promise of balm or reprieve, but only with faith in our team and school. This is the path I have chosen, and which I reaffirm every year, knowing that if our boys fail, we all at least fail together, daring great things, and that our place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.