Even a practice
Posted
I left work late on Tuesday, late for Medicare practice. Medicare is the UPA touring team that I’m on for the next few weeks (should I continue to be healthy). To reiterate though, I left late, and I left in a bad mood.
It’s rare that I’m in a bad mood and today was just one of those days where anything could set me off. I kept my cool on the highway to the fields, on the road through the sleepy town, and even in the parking lot. It was one of those times where I just thought about the day, getting late to practice, being frustrated with a myriad of things, a few moments when I hadn’t played well over the summer, and in general just everything from the past few months weighing on me. It was almost as if I was just waiting for something to push me over the edge.
As I walked on the asphault to the fields I clenched up, not caring about how bad it would make my teammates feel, or how poorly I’d play, that I might be cut from the team, staring at the ground and just seething.
I turned the corner and stepped onto the fields and in an instant I was calm. I looked up to see that my teammates and friends were running a run-mark-throw drill and as they noticed my arrival they smiled and waved. I hurriedly changed into my cleats, pulled the laces taught, and threw in a few knots. Everything about my day, all the frustrations, all the problems to solve were nowhere to be found.
That, my friends, is Ultimate for me. Not a happy place but rather simply where one thinks only of play.