Watching Tom Brady (And Gronk) Win It All On Sunday Wasn't Like Watching Your Ex Have Sex With Somebody Else. It Was Worse.
Melancholy: a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.
Bittersweet: pleasure accompanied by suffering or regret
After taking a few days to let the emotions of Sunday settle, many Patriots fans are left self-evaluating which of the two camps of feelings they fall into.
Was it better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all?
Absolutely fucking yes.
That's not the question whatsoever.
The question revolves around how it all ended. And did it really need to end?
As Coghlan's Law states, "everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end.”
My buddy morgan loves to remind us of a famous Elvis Pressley quote. The king said, “there’s only two sure things in life: hookers and Cadillacs”.
That’s solid advice.
That said, the king never got to see Tom Brady play. Because just like a vegas call girl or a Coupe DeVille, TB12 will never ever let you down.
Everybody with a brain (ie everybody not named David Williams) knows this. For some of us, we knew as soon as after the 1st Rams Super Bowl. Others took much much longer to convince. It seems that even before yesterday most of the doubters had finally come around and embraced laying witness to once in a lifetime greatness. This morning even fewer remain. (Ie - David Williams)
Which is what’s made this year so trying as a true blue Patriots fan.
Everybody has been throwing around the metaphor of having to watch your ex move on with somebody better than you, or having to watch the fuck somebody else.
But that couldn't be more off base.
For one, they are your ex for a reason. You don't wish death upon your exes but you don't wish them well most times. That's not the case here with Brady. No Pats fan with a brain harbored a single ounce of ill-will towards him.
Secondly, in this case your ex didn't move on to somebody better than you. They moved on to the laughingstock of the town. They went slumming big time. Brady took his talents to one of the most losing franchises in all of sports. This wasn't Roger Clemens going to the Yankees.
And thirdly, as the record-shattering tv rating numbers attest, most Pats fans were pulling for Brady on Sunday. And all season. It wasn't "send you over the edge like OJ" rage-inducing viewing like watching your ex get taken to pound town.
And lastly, the sex was never actually as incredible as you remember it. You can disagree but you're wrong. You remember the Sportscenter Top Ten highlight package of your relationships sexcapades. The bathroom stall romps, the kitchen counters, the mile high club session, and shit like that. It wasn't always like that because if it was they wouldn't be your ex.
Plus, if you really were watching your ex get railed out or rail somebody else, you'd just nitpick and critique it to convince yourself you're not missing anything anyways.
None of that is the case here.
I've been trying to use the left side of my brain to come up with a better metaphor to put into simple terms what this has felt like but to no avail.
Initially, I thought this was like being a kid in a divorce where we were forced to choose between two parents. And out of loyalty, we had to choose to stay with dad because he’s keeping the house and that’s where we grew up. And even though he’s a miserable old man who got tired of mom, thought he could do better, and let her leave, we still owe him an awful lot and can’t turn our back on him.
We still want the best for mom, but her going on to find happiness with a new guy and his family in sunny Florida while we're stuck at home buried under 2 feet of snow with a fuckin curmudgeon who only gives one-word answers and listens to Bon Jovi on repeat doesn't make it easy.
The one I think best applies here is keeping it in the family, but making it sibling related.
Imagine if you will you have an older sister. Let’s say her name is Billie Jo.
Billie Jo kinda sucks. Actually, she really sucks.
One of those people who if you weren’t related to her, you definitely wouldn’t want to know her.
She’s always in a bad mood, has a constant puss on her face, never smiles, shows zero personality, and is a total drag.
She’s what you call an anvil.
Her first serious boyfriend she dated after college was from Cleveland and although he was a nice guy he was a total and complete loser. In every sense of the word. She dated another bum from New York after that and left him in the middle of the night like a total bitch with no explanation. Just a dear John note scribbled on a cocktail napkin.
You and your parents basically gave up all hope for her after that.
But then she took at job at your parents company and she showed incredible promise. She got things on track that had never been on track before and the company began to prosper. She briefly dated some tall, handsome guy from Washington but you knew without knowing for sure that she wasn’t faithful to him.
So you weren’t surprised the day she walked in with a pale, and pudgy guy from Michigan named Tim. Guy looked like a sack of potatoes, looked like he hadn't seen the sun in a decade, got his haircut at Sportclips, yet carried himself with extreme overconfidence that you couldn’t help but be confused by.
Slowly but surely he began to grow on you and your family. He was always lending a hand, helping you and your dad with yard work, your mom with charity drives, and couldn’t have seemed happier to do any of it.
He was the polar opposite of your sister. Nobody could figure out how the two of them got along. Or if they did?
Over time Tim began to transform before your eyes. He shed some weight, started dressing in clothes that fit, and spent more than $20 on a haircut. He looked like a fucking stud. And he treated your sister, parents, and you like fucking gold.
You two also became best buds. He felt like more of a family member to you than some of your actual family members.
He made everybody in your family better too. Miraculously.
Your cool uncles and cousins suddenly loved coming over for family get-togethers. And your shitty aunts and uncles lightened up when he was around. Miraculously. Some of them were even funny.
It was incredible and indescribable.
You guys prayed that your sister would do the right thing and marry him and then have kids so he’d be around forever.
Tim was always talking about wanting kids so he’d be able to have some fun and “toys to play with.” But your sister always complained, “they were too expensive.”
So instead they adopted dogs.
1 at first. Then 2 more back to back a few years later.
Then when it seemed they were all dogged out and the "having kids" ship had sailed Tom I mean Tim pressed more for kids. He was on a new diet and he’d never looked better. He seemed recharged and like his best years were still ahead of him. Even started a new side business. But your sister still refused to give in. Despite your father Robert and mother Jan trying their hardest to intervene. She just wouldn’t listen. Instead, she got another dog.
4 dogs.
Like a total scumbag, your sister had a little fling with a guy from work named Jimmy. Tim found out about it and was livid. He was done with your sister. All trust had been lost. But your parents stepped in and convinced him to come back and that they’d make sure Jimmy was never in the picture again. They transferred him to a division within the company across the country. (But you heard through the grapevine that your sister still texts Jimmy every Sunday to talk business)
Your sister and Tim got back on track and then a couple of years later when it seemed absolutely outside the realm of possibility they got 2 more dogs. Now they were up to 6!
Six fuckin dogs. Surely that would shut Tim up about wanting kids and keep him occupied and off her ass, right?
Nope, Tim persisted, he wanted more. He thought fuck it, he was just getting started.
Your sister didn’t see things the same way so she gave Timmy an ultimatum. She said she was over the relationship but she’d be willing to keep him around for one more year as a favor to you and her parents, but there’d be no more sex. And he wasn’t allowed to hang out with his friends anymore.
Tim obviously said thanks but no thanks, he’d had enough. He knew he deserved better and finally acted on it. He was done being strung along so he thanked your parents for everything, and moved down to Florida.
You guys stayed in touch because you were best friends. You basically loved the man like a brother, even though he was no longer dating your sister.
He quickly fell into the arms of a trashy hooters waitress named Becky. This new girl had been around the block and been used and abused. She came with a lot of baggage. What could Tim have seen in her? Was he just that down to rebound and settling for anything?
Nope. Turns out that underneath the ten pounds of makeup, and tattoo sleeves, Becky had some real assets. And all she needed was a good influence like Tim in her life to rub off on her.
Within 6 months Becky got toned up, laser removed all her trashy tats, went back to her natural hair color, and finished her degree. Tim was a fucking magician.
The two were in love and engaged a few months later. This weekend Tim finally got his first kid, a son.
Although you couldn’t be happier for such a great guy, you feel mixed emotions because his kid isn’t with your sister. He should have been YOUR nephew. And Tim should be your brother in law.
It coulda been us! It shoulda been us!
You hate your sister for being so foolish and selfish and you wanna be happy for Tim but you can’t be truly.
You’re not a selfish person but it’s instinctual. It’s weird.
You want to be happy for the guy but he's not apart of your family anymore. And he should be but your sister is a fucking moron.
Now Tim seems to be living the life. Totally carefree and happy and it's like a knife twist when you see shit like this on social media
The whole situation stinks.
And to make matters worse, the family business is slipping bad and your sister has no real plan for the future. That and and she spent the last year dating a crossdresser.