The Closer

Special thanks to guest author M,atthew Croke, for his excellent guest post today! Kim is moving and will be back next week!

I want to be a closer in baseball. Or at least I want to think like one.  I was watching a game on TV and one of the best closers in baseball gave up back to back home runs and his team lost the game.  The next night he gets another chance to close out the game. This time: he walks the first batter, hits the second batter, and the third batter hits a double which scores two runs.  They lose again.

Reporters swarm the closer after the game, hoping to get a swearing, out-of-control athlete who will throw equipment and have a meltdown for all to see.  The network news will then reply his weak moment over and over again, happily letting the world see a man who has failed.  The viewing public will stop everything they are doing to see this piece of entertainment every time it’s shown.

However, to the dismay of news producers, the baseball closer sits at his locker; ten microphones shoved in his face, and without flinching, tell the reporters what they don’t want to hear.  “If you are going to be a closer in baseball, you have to have a short memory.  You walk off the field and take the loss, you forget it happened and get back out there the next day and do your job.” He says picking a piece of string off his jersey as if the cameras don’t exist.

“But you’ve blown two in a row, do you feel you’ve lost your confidence?” barks a reporter from the back, trying his best to get the player to lose his cool.

The closer, looking at the piece of string before tossing it over his shoulder, looks back at the reporter and shrugs his shoulders.  “Those games are over, they’re irrelevant to me.  Tomorrow I will wake up and start all over again.”

A few nights ago, I had a bad night putting my kids to sleep: they took forever getting their pajamas on, they were playing instead of going to the bathroom, and every time I’d get one in the bedroom I would see another one come back out to play. By the time I had them all in their room to read stories, I was yelling and told them “no books” and left the room to crying children as I turned off the light and barked one more “Go to sleep.” for good measure.

I went upstairs and without turning on the lights, sat in the living room; the darkness allowing my brain to form a complete thought. It didn’t take long for me to be disappointed in myself for not having enough patience.  I wanted to the day to be over and what were kids being kids, I used as an excuse so I could get out of going through their entire nighttime routine.  It was the end of the day and I blew the final inning. I walked the first batter, hit the second, and then gave up a double to lose the game, kids crying and all.

“I blew the game tonight.” I told myself. “I need to have a short memory, for when I go to bed and wake up in the morning, I will be given the ball again, and if by chance, I happen to blow it two nights in a row, then the day after that I will go back out and try again.”

The difference between a Hall of Famer and a player in the minors isn’t the blown saves, everybody loses games. It’s the ability of the Hall of Famer to walk off the field and forget about it before he steps into the locker room that makes the difference.

Flooding

Special thanks to guest blogger Matthew Croke for filling in while Kim is at Camp Widow...we appreciate you Matt!

I hate to think I need bad stuff to happen to put life in perspective.  Haven’t I already tortured myself enough, trying to understand painful life lessons after my wife’s passing?  After three years, haven’t I come out on the other side a better person?

On the three year anniversary of Lisa’s passing, my parent’s basement flooded due to record rainfall in Chicago.  The very same basement my three girls and I moved into a year ago, after we sold our house.

A basement, where I specifically did not clean up before the weekend, as I was going to give myself a break to focus on the emotions of her passing.  Thus, toys, books, and clothes that on Friday night were on the floor, by Saturday morning, floated around the basement, like lily pads on a pond.

I place three fans throughout the basement to dry the floor which just hours ago were inches deep in water.  More memories are taken away from me as an entire collection of children’s books are ruined, water pouring out of them like a soaked sponge, as I lift them from the bottom shelf to the garbage.  Lisa use to read these to our girls. 

Today it seems personal. How much more headache is life going to throw my way.  I thought I was getting better feeling the world is not picking on me.  Today I am being bullied.  I can feel the anger build in my stomach.

I take a break from clean-up and go upstairs to get a glass of water.  I drink it fast as if I can, as if I’m trying to douse the fire that is roaring in my belly.  My Mom calls from the living room, “Matt, the news is on and they are showing the flood.”  I walk in the room and the first image on TV I’m greeted with, is an older man on oxygen cleaning his basement which is damaged far greater than ours, “What can you do?  You gotta clean up and rebuild.” he says, his shirt as wet from his perspiration, as his pants are from the flood waters.

His words throw a blanket over my anger inferno.  “The world isn’t picking on me” I say to myself, “I am looking for a fight.  Everyone is hurting tonight in my area; I’ve just made a choice to make it all personal.”  This is not how I want to live.

I go back downstairs to throw more soggy furnishings in the garbage.  While I’m at it, I decide to do a little internal cleaning and throw away some soggy anger that needs to be put by the curbside also.  When the clean-up is done, both places will be a healthier environment to live in.

I'm Failing

I’m failing. No, not with mourning and recovery. That, my psychologist reassures me, I’m doing quite well with. In fact, he tells me that I’m doing extraordinarily well - best he's seen. (Read the next word in your best dripping sarcasm voice:) Yaaaay!

I’m failing at getting back into life. I’m just stuck and I don’t know how to get unstuck. Life isn’t really throwing me any easy lobs over the plate either. My latest biggest challenge is that I spend an unhealthy chunk of time alone and I’m not exactly sure how to fix that. My friends are all married with children (like I should be) so my running buddies are busy chasing kids. Gone are the days of single friends having BBQs or nights on the town. Now those same friends’ evenings are filled with sick kids, wife/husband date nights, or other family crises while my evenings are, well, less engaged. At least with my current set of friends, gone are my easy opportunities to jump back into life and be effortlessly carried away by all the camaraderie that is (or was) being young and single.

I’m failing to find my place in this world. I don’t belong downtown in the Mecca of the barfly; I’m not the right age or temperament or something. Likewise, I don’t belong in the divorce groups; I’m not divorced (and no, being widowed is NOT like your spouse leaving you and no, your divorce is NOT a tragedy.) I also don’t belong to the life-long singles, those who for some reason or another haven’t found true love; Maggie and I had true love in our hands, and it was ripped away from us both. So where do I belong?

I mentioned to a married-with-child friend of mine (and Maggie’s) the other day that I was going to learn to play volleyball. (My logic is charming in its simplicity: People play volley ball. I need to meet people. Therefore, I need to learn to play volleyball.) My friend, in her innocent ignorance, said “Go hang out with some friends at the local volley ball courts and meet new people.” Ah, said like that, it’s so simple.

People remember their single days as easy and filled with single friends (because everyone WAS single back then!) The idea of hanging out at a volley ball court with friends is easy to conceptualize because it was easy to materialize - just call six or seven of your (all single) friends and one or two, at least, would join in the fun. Game on! But what has changed out from under us that isn’t obvious is that all the single folks have been replaced by married folks and, at my age, most with children. Try calling six or seven of those same folks to suggest hanging out at a volley ball court one afternoon and see what responses you get now. But my friend, with her kind suggestion, just didn’t see how her simple plan was doomed or why I wasn’t already doing it. Then she labeled my disagreement a “negative attitude” and as me “not trying hard enough.” Crap.

I don’t have any answers. Likewise, I don’t have any interesting analogies to drive my point home this time around. I’m just frustrated.

But frustration leads to action. Action is movement and movement is good, even when it’s not in the right direction. I feel like I’m stuck out in a blizzard, with the snow waist-deep and the howling wind confusing my senses. My feet are numb and my face stings from the wind. It would be so easy to just sit down in the snow and give up. But I can’t. I will not. I don’t know the right way but I know what I won’t do and that’s quit. So I move on. I will keep my feet moving. Movement is good. (Damn, there goes my no-analogies moment!)

One day I’ll find my path. One day, in hindsight, I’ll be amazed at where I’ve been and how far I’ve come. My new single friends won’t believe the amazing stories I tell them about my travels. One day, I’ll see that what I thought was failing was just a redefinition of what it meant to be me.