One of the more useful discoveries I’ve had in therapy over the last few years is that it is sometimes helpful for me to regard an emotional state as a weather pattern. As someone who leans more analytical, I’ve been known to mentally exhaust myself trying to get to the root cause of any “unpleasant” feeling that comes my way, and while that can be a good instinct to follow in certain situations, sometimes it is better for me to simply admit that I’m in a crummy mood this week or that I’m kind of keyed up today and it’s totally fine! It will not behoove me to try to “think” my way out of that particular state and I will in fact move through it with greater ease if I accept it and work with what I have. This is especially helpful when agitation coincides with external factors like the weather or the calendar of sports seasons or the calendar of regular seasons and all of the above are at work on me right now. Maybe they are for you too, and I cordially invite you to let the madness wash over us.
Of the “big four” sports in these United States, baseball and basketball are my particular favorites and timing wise, the NBA is crescendoing while the MLB’s overture is heating up and I’m lost in the cacophony. We are far enough into the baseball season to have a small sample size of games, but not far enough in for me to mellow out, realize that the standings don’t really matter until mid-late June, and not react with wild emotion to every slight change in nuance. Last weekend Cleveland lost both games of a double header to the Yankees and I stormed around my apartment convinced that we need to blow up half the roster and bring up our prospects, all while rending my garments and giving over to fatalistic despair over the fate of the ball club. Then we won the next game and I realized everything was fine.
This tendency toward sensationalization is fueled by the start of the
NBA playoffs, which the Cavs are in for the second year in a row and for only the second time in my conscious fandom without LeBron James on the team. Because of the ups and downs of this team over the last two seasons, I would characterize my outlook as “bracing for impact” rather than “excited and receptive to the concept of fun.” The first round matchup is against the Orlando Magic and so, mercifully, I can white knuckle my way through a best-of-seven series that the majority of the public does not even know is taking place. Indeed, game one tipped off at 1pm on a Saturday (oh boy, the coveted Brunch Slot), and I think I speak for Cavs and Magic faithful alike in telling the rest of the basketball world to enjoy their “meaningful” matchups while we duke it out in obscurity. This is the Thinking Man’s Series.
On top of all this, I also have to deal with days where it is nice to be outside. The very notion! The early warm weather stints of spring produce in me a whirlwind of desire to do anything and everything that is fun and pleasant outdoors and hang out with every friend I can possibly think of all at once, which invariably results in me falling short of meeting either lofty goal. I assume this to be a commonplace impulse because of the number of times I’m out in the world asking myself “Where the hell did all these people come from?” There they go, emerging from the dreary winter, freaking out about the playoffs, scrambling to file their taxes, hurrying to lay the groundwork for a summer romantic fling, catching up on training for that marathon, cleaning the grill, cramming for finals, taking the kids to soccer practice, wondering how we’re already this far into the year.
Now that I think about it, this isn’t the kind of thing I’d prefer to let wash over me, I’d rather fully and totally savor it.
