As the world goes to shit around me, I watched the Superbowl at 6pm with my mom. Neither of us really watches sports normally and we certainly wouldn't pick to watch football if given the choice, but she wanted to see all the commercials and I wanted to watch Bad Bunny.
Yesterday morning we went to sams club. I knew were going to go out for a bit so the night before I looked up which teams were playing and put together a casual outfit based off of one of the teams colors. I chose the seahawks. I like their mascot and that they have so many players who are 2nds and 3rds and 4ths. I think it's cool and endearing to see people in families where lineage matters. Where a family name actually means something... Represents something they want to carry on.
Incidentally, I rarely ever get out of the house these days and the weather was so lovely. I had a great time, even though the rush of the church crowd made the shopping way more anxiety inducing than normal. Mom let me get a few things from the sams and then even took me to get froyo.
It was a good day. We talked a bit and laughed some and braved the awful traffic and then came home and watched the game. She drank but it wasn't the same since she hadn't been drinking at all really for almost a whole week. She has this weird allergy to alcohol and it was worse since she'd had this little bit of a break, so she was drinking slower than normal.
We yelled at the TV loud enough to scare the animals and we were much more invested than either of us had imagined we'd be. The commercials made me depressed because they were mostly AI related/created and as they played (and she got drunker) I voiced my disdain for the AI content and she nodded and complained about how there was no Clydesdale commercial, to which it was my turn to nod (when the clydesdale commercial finally did come on, she was underwhelmed). I told her that the few ads that weren't AI or technology related made me emotional and she laughed a bit but didn't say much else.
It was hard seeing the commercials of young children and families and friends. I teared up a lot. I guess i'm not as "over" my lack of a familial unit as i thought i was...
At some point during the game, the seahawks were up by 12 and the patriots hadn't scored anything and the announcers kept talking about the patriot's quarterback Mayes and how he was only 23 and this was his first ever superbowl game and how he got sacked 7 times, which is embarrassing i guess (even more so because he broke a record for this). they showed a photo of him and his father together 10 years prior at superbowl 50 and i looked at that grinning 13 year old boy and got sad.
i couldn't stop thinking about how young he was and how much pressure he must have been feeling during those 2 and a half hours. i just kept thinking and thinking until i felt so bad for him that i just wanted the patriots to score something. anything. i just wanted to be able to think about him going to the locker room after the game and not feeling like he let everyone down... because i noticed, in football, everyone always blames the quarterback for any mistakes or "missed opportunities". and when you notice that and think about the stadium packed full of 70,000 strangers and then think about how that 23 year old boy was only 13 just 10 years ago and that all those strangers don't actually care about him they just care about the team he represents and think about how his whole team is counting on him to throw the right way or run at the right time or gain the yards or make the touchdown... it starts to get hard to breathe. he had family there. people wearing jerseys with his name on the back. and he is just a kid doing his best and now people from all over the world were watching his best not be good enough. the whole thing just made football really sad.
when the seahawks won, of course i cheered. i watched as the winning players grinned and pointed to the sky as if god was the reason they were holding the trophy instead of their own hard work. i watched as they fought back tears and did interviews with ladies who asked them too many questions instead of just letting them celebrate with their teammates. i clapped on my couch and smiled at my tv from 1000s of miles away as the colored confetti showered them in the undeniable sense of victory and accomplishment.
and then i left the living room because i couldn't bear to see the patriots making their way around the field congratulating the victors. my heart couldn't handle the looks of defeat and failure, the way their heads hung and their palms pressed to their eyes like maybe they could push the tears back in. and i couldn't stick around risking the chance that they might show Mayes walking back to the locker room alone.
When i got up, my mom was standing drunkenly in the kitchen eating some sandwich she had gotten earlier while we were out, and i tried to make light of it. i said "i bet that bus ride back to their hotel is 'bout to be silent!" and she laughed and just kept thinking about that 13 year old boy.
and as i'm thinking about him now, i can't help but feel a bit lucky that i got to walk away from that game knowing that i never have to think about it again. neither team winning or losing was of any consequence to me. i also feel gutted for him because in a much lesser way i guess i understand what it's like to be in the place you've always dreamt of being in and knowing you may never get another chance like the one you have right there in that very moment and feeling that mass and that pressure and being young and capable and carrying the weight of it all in a way that makes you feel like it's solely your own personal burden to bear and fumbling it in front of all the people who think you're actually worth something...
I hope someone hugged him that night. i hope his teammates told him that it was okay, even if they didn't mean it. i hope he ate and showered and didn't think mean things about himself. i hope he goes to the superbowl again and that he wins. i hope he believes that is a possibility.
i didn't know this man existed before last night and i'm sure in a few days he will be someone that doesn't cross my mind again (or at least until the next superbowl). but right now, i'm thinking about drake mayes. and i am trying very hard not to feel too badly for him because i think that would validate those negative thoughts and feelings he might be having about himself. maybe he wasn't his normal best, but i think he was still good. i hope he thinks he was good too. the whole game he didn't once give up... that's got to count for something, right?
that, of course, is all arbitrary and maybe i'm doing that thing where i mirror myself onto others as a means of deflecting my own internal feelings about myself, but in the case that i'm not, i wanted to say that i care about him as a stranger who was only watching because their mom asked them too and who was rooting for the other team.
The weather is nice again today and i have a to-do list that i'm behind on. i have a psychiatry appointment in an hour and a therapy appointment an hour after that. i'm not looking forward to either.
i hope you're well, charlie. i hope you're taking care of your health and your heart and i hope you aren't too disappointed in where you are in life and i hope that the 13 year old you can find a way to look at you now and be proud of your efforts rather than just their results. i hope one day 13 year old me can learn to do that same.
