When I was in high school I was a pretty good wide receiver. Had a great Jr year and got some all state recognition as well as some eyes from some smaller colleges. So expectations were pretty high for my senior year. Anyway, was off to a decent start to my Sr year, we had won 2 or 3 in a row and I had put up some decent numbers but still hadn’t really had a breakout game. We were ranked in the top 10 and the team we were playing for our next game was in the top 10 as well.
At the time I was dating this chick I had been crushing on for quite a while. She had just broken up with her long time boyfriend so I was trying to move right in. I really had some feelings for her, so it really was fucking me up in the head the week before this game because I had heard she was still getting with her ex even though we were getting together. Kid shit, I see that now, but at the time it was really messing with me. In summary, my headspace was not right going into this big game.
Then 9/11 happened and that was a total mind-fuck. I happened to watch it live on TV before I went to school in the morning and kind of brushed it off. My dumbass thought it was like the anniversary of OKC bombing or the first time the towers were bombed. I think in the back of my head I knew it was bad but it didn’t really hit to me till I was in my first hour and the teacher was like 15 min late to class and I am just sitting there with these dudes in my class who were arguing. It was this crew of, I guess you might say goth kids, though they weren’t really goth. They were more metal. They got me into NIN and At the Drive-in. Anyway, not the point.
One of the kids looks at the other and says, “America was attacked you dumbfuck”. My math teacher walks in at this time, and he is looking pretty somber. He looks at us and says, “pretty much.”
The only other time I had heard that phrase used was in History when Mr. Potter was talking about Pearl Harbor. Which kicked off WW2. So right at that moment, I thought, “fuck, I’m going to get drafted”. My buddies and I spent the rest of the school day in the auditorium.
Now 9/11 happened on Tuesday of the week of our big game. So all week at practice all of us seniors have thoughts of military service running through the back of our heads but we never really talked about it. I speculate that some thought they would be heroes, but me…I thought I would be cannon fodder for sure.
On top of this, my girlfriend is banging her ex. The funny thing is that, looking back I think that was bugging me more than the possibility of being cannon fodder. Kid shit.
Friday night came and as I am standing on the sideline while the opposition school does a genuine and moving patriotic display of solidarity for country- those displays that would become so fucking over the top and annoying over the next 5-10 years- I look in the stands and my girlfriend isn’t at the game with her friends. Turns out she wasn’t able to make it after all.
Needless to say I played like absolute shit, dropping 2-3 routine passes and just generally not having my head in the game. We go to halftime down big and in the locker room at half my coach is just livid and he looks at me and says “All-state receiver my ass!”.
I think I had a better second half. I know we lost the game. But the point is that none of any of this shit mattered at all.
I never got drafted. I didn’t play football after high school. I dated that girl for like 3 years and we broke up in college.
And you know what, it’s all good.
If addiction is defined as:
noun
1.Physiological or psychological dependence, as on a substance.
2.An instance of this.
3.The condition of being habitually occupied with or involved in something.
Then it could be said that addiction has driven the human experience from our days of dwelling in caves and onward.
