Like a Father to Impress

8 November 2006

Everton 0-1 Arsenal
Adebayor 85'

Somedays it just seems like the whole world is against you, physically and emotionally. It's snowing, which normally I love, but it will make my drive home annoying, and cold, and dangerous. Arsenal has lost three (all three, yes, it is impossible to lose anymore) cup competitions in the last 2 weeks. Oh, I know I'm writing about 8 November, when they beat Everton in the Carling Cup - don't worry, skip ahead a number of chapters and you'll see they lose the Cup. Then they dropped the FA Cup, and today, 7 March 2007, not 8 November 2006, they lose to PSV in the Champions League. We have lost domestically and abroad. Our failure looms large in front of us, like a tidal wave. Part of me wants to stick my arms out like Christ and welcome the depression. Wash over me, take me away, beat my head against rocks and drown me. Feed me to the sharks, scatter my bones across the sand, and let hermit crabs make homes out of me. It is so easy to think like that. It requires very little effort. Fighting it takes so much energy, and to be honest, I have very little energy left. My insomnia has gotten worse the last couple of nights, and every day I contemplate staying home from work and sleeping. But some insanity drives me, some lunacy drags me kicking and screaming to work, plops me down in my chair, and makes me stare at the internet until I have had enough coffee to do work. I have some kind of absurd work ethic that, for all intents and purposes, forbids me to call out of work unless I really am sick, and then like, we're talking fever and so on. I'm crazy. If this keeps up, however, I will have to take a day off. Arsenal has forsaken me, my college basketball team of choice (my alma mater, the goddamn George Mason Patriots!) have decided to be sub-par this year, and the Yankees, well, they haven't had a chance yet to disappoint me yet, but I guarantee you, they will. The only saving grace this year has been the Washington Wizards, who, somehow, have managed to be good. Oh right. That's because they're in one of the worst conferences to ever exist in sports. In sum: sports, my religion, my safety net, my pillar of strength, is failing me. Where religious people look to faith to help get them through tough times, I look to sports. Sports are the definition of social achievements, they are the model of humanity. They represent institutions, agreements, struggle, success—and loss. It is by reminding myself of the whole picture, of how complete an analogy sports are to humanity, that I can stomach such widespread and consistent losses. Like a man whose faith in religion has been shaken, my faith in sports has been shaken; shaken like a towel in a tornado. But like that religious man, I find faith again, slowly, surely. Right: sports represent both sides of life, the good and the bad. No complete analogy, no perfect metaphor, can symbolize life without victory and defeat. Thus I can embrace the magnificent losses that only Arsenal have endured in the last two weeks. So I can look at them, my beautiful Gunners, my honorable warriors, and finally begin to gather a small dose of security. The breakup with Michelle has hurt me surprisingly deep; it’s impossible to lie in my bed without thinking about her. As I sit, blandly watching television with my roommate, all the days seem to blur into the same day. I wake up, I go to work, I come home, I make salad, we watch television and I struggle to sleep. When I was with Michelle, my life seemed exciting and vibrant, flush with rich colors and hopeful attitudes. Beyond our relationship, it all seems gray, cardboard, superfluous. Maybe this is normal, maybe this is the standard route of a breakup. I want to try and get over her, but I look at other girls and feel immense dissatisfaction. But wait, this isn’t fair: I was dissatisfied with most of them even before Michelle. Now that I know, though, that there is at least one girl who actually meets my tall list of requirements, it seems doubly daunting to find a second. But what other choice do I have? Times like this, I look to my dad, and I wonder how he can be satisfied with his life. He got married, but divorced five years later. I was an accident in the middle. After his divorce from my mom, he had a string of girlfriends, but his dating years seem to be way behind him, by at least six years. Now he divides his time between being at work and watching soccer. I swear to whatever God you believe in, those two things (and sleeping) consume about 95% of his time. And he seems happy. I don’t get it. I want more. I don’t want to be reduced to coming home from work, watching DVRed soccer games, having a couple glasses of red wine and going to sleep. If that was my life, I would be immensely depressed. And maybe he is, I mean, when you’re 52 where do you go to find new love? I feel like he might have given up. I don’t want to be put in that situation. Will having a wife solve that? Having kids? Giving back to the community? Donating to a charity? At some point, my simple life has to be enough for me. I have to be able to sit down, accept that I’m an editor who wishes he had become a writer, a boyish man who worships sports, and generally a lazy bastard who enjoys a pint. The breakup with Michelle re-exposes old nerves, old anxieties of not being good enough, of being too neurotic, of being too plain. It’s one thing to think positive thoughts; it’s another to believe them. Telling myself I’m funny and charming is nice; knowing I’m attractive and a worthwhile date is a whole ‘nother ballgame. The alienating part is, I’m not questioning myself because Michelle broke up with me: I trust her, and what she said. I’m questioning myself because suddenly I’m lonely again, and I think my dad has been lonely for many years, and I don’t want to end up like him. I look in the mirror and slowly I see him (our physical resemblance doesn’t help). Good God, it scares me so much. I’m not ashamed of my father, but I do feel sorry for him. As I was fixing my dinner tonight, my roommate and I discussed how bored we have become with our cyclical lifestyle. Perhaps it has finally reached a tipping point: we talked about doing things on the weeknights. It’s difficult for us, because we’re usually exhausted, and waking up at 7am breeds early bedtimes, but sitting around this house is slowly driving us mad. Tomorrow we will break the circle, we will free ourselves from our shackles. Who knows what the night will hold for us: maybe only a cup of tea in a rundown coffeehouse. Surely it will be better than this, though, wallowing in existential crises, drinking water, tears held back but only for lack of sleep. Sure everyone dies alone, but I don’t want to live alone.