Football is war in miniature. Every play is a day of fighting. The general tells the captain how his young men will fight that day, and then they go.
We said "Next play" for everything. Good, bad, sloppy. Except when we cheered.
You watch replays of your games the following day after a game. You responded to coaching with "Yes sir."
At the end of the game, regardless of what happened, you said to the other team, "Good game."
The only day when all those things fly out the window is at the end.
The final game against a team we hated. They crushed us. I played about three plays.
I'm still angry about it, more than a decade later. Why? I still bitterly hate those feelings. Utter defeat. Hopelessness. Remorse. Anger. Sadness.
I don't know why I want to do kink play. I fear that it's a reflection of the lack of controls over my own life, that I want to project onto others through dominance and sadism.
I'm still angry because I don't know what I did wrong, if anything.
Was it a mistake to play 5 years of football to only start less than 5 games total? Did I waste my time playing a game that clearly damages the whole body totally, when I could have done something else? What-if scenarios are all fantasies. I do, however, think reflecting on clear decision points does make you a better person. It's useless asking about a decision that ended up affecting five years of my young adult life, but I can ask why I felt that why.
I felt that way because I cared. The feelings I had hurt so deeply that I buried it, memory and all.
My coach died a couple years ago of old age. I didn't go to see him off.
A team mate died not long after. I saw him at a grocery store and didn't say hi, a few months before his end.
We live our lives by the scoreboards we choose for ourselves. Others may score us by their own boards, but we choose the scores we care about.
At the end of anyone's life, which scoreboards matter the most?
Men called World War I "The Great War" before a greater war shook the world. The Greatest War, though, is life. For now, I hope, there is still a next play.
Take care.