Even a practice

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.