I got my wish, the
summer lasts forever again. This is the third year in which I have endured the trials of
soccer pre-season, and it never ceases really, really hurt.
The hours fade into days, and each day is a day to be lived, a day whose end I would not covet. I don't think or ponder, that's for people who have free time. I wake up in the morning and I know exactly what I will do and how I will do. My goals are nil, and what I hope to accomplish is to survive, to achieve medial things like not getting hurt and being lucid enough to stare at my computer screen for the hours each day that I can.
At 9:00 am I arrive at school and run, work, sweat. My much-too-sedintary lifestyle does not afford the same degree of uncleanliness that hours of hard activity each day do. Clothes worn when you never break a sweat are still good - they can be worth another day. Yet in 3 hours I totally exhaust the usefulness of the shirt and shorts I donned before leaving. I stagger back home at 11:00 and shower, put on a nice shirt and long pants and go to work, arriving at 12:00. My biggest dilemma there is whether I should actually let on that I'm not really staying until 5:00. Part of the benefits of being a migrant, teenage intern is that no one knows when I'm supposed to be coming or going. No one checks on me, I can lie. The power unnerves, but I need the money. I don't like lying, but what man, given the chance to be dishonest and get away with it entirely, would pass it up?
I leave for home at 4:00 pm, an hour earlier than I normally would. I change for the second time and depart for the school field again. This time, the workout is not running. It is soccer, for two and a half hours. At 7:30, again sweaty, tired, and sore, I meander home and shower for the second time, change for the third. My thoughts and worries are no longer on such abstract concepts as future, creativity, or friendship. My consciousness is work, pain, and inertia. Soccer is a game, and games are supposed to be fun? But this is not one of the games I would spend hours playing in front of my TV or monitor had I any time to myself. This is high school sports, overblown and ridiculously competitve. Sometimes I wonder why I still retain this antiquated, barbaric bastion of my childhood. I haven't the willpower to change, it is familiar in a world in which so little else is. I wrote this node as the expression of what little creative impulse I can draw up from my tired, numbed mind.
When I go to sleep, I would normally look forward to things to come tomorrow. But, I neither dread nor await tomorrow, for I know beyond a doubt what it will bring. This temporary bout of masochism will be over soon. If I can endure this, there are many other things I can endure. I can forget my larger struggles for a smaller, simpler struggle.