Thankfully, we're a few years away from having to deal with inter-gender relational issues, tissues, and miss-you's (woah....), but raising our young Sox fans will give them plenty of experience of drinking joy and sorrow from the same fountain.
I'll be posting a few chapters on things I hope our kids learn from us through our seasonal highs and woes.
Chapter One: Impending doom is not the same as doom.
I know that this is the time of year when we get that butterfly feeling in our collective fan-bellies, just like the one you get at the top of the log flume ride. Even though its not your first ride you are not thinking about those final turns, screams, and splashes. First you were cruising around the easier turns, taking in the view, enjoying the breeze; then you begin the deliberate, clunky climb up to the top. You pause to think "we're not rowing, how are we floating uphill?", but then you hear the machinery underneath, a tiny mechanical bucket-brigade passing your logful of friends up the ramp one click at a time.
When you reach the top you can see the whole amusement park for a minute, and then as you move beyond the rim, in that half second before the real business of the ride begins, your internal organs inform you that they will not be making this trip, instead they will climb down the emergency ladder and meet you at the bottom.
The parallels, in love and baseball, should be apparent. Early in the season the air is sweet with possibility. You enjoy the scenery, you tell people "I think this could really be it, everything is aligned perfectly." And then you get that strange, climbing feeling. A building of anticipation and nervousness. Tensions mount. Did you overcommit? Is this ride more than you bargained for? Should you have hedged your bets, not given yourself so foolishly to hope? As you prepare for the final run, the home stretch, the meeting of rubber and road, time stops. You scream but there is no sound. Your liver is volunteering itself for donation. In that split, frozen second you have all the time in the world to think "This is the Biggest Mistake I've Ever Made."
But you know what? Most people make it. Many ride more than once. Red Sox fans, the true ones, do it every year. That fear of the end? Its not really the end. Its just a moment before things get really good. And if its not all you hoped for, if it leaves you wanting a little more? You can always ride again.
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2 comments:
But what if the line is too long? I mean there is a such thing as too many people taking that ride before you, but I guess those are lessons to be learned later as well.
Thats why we have cable, who can even afford tickets?
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