Getting Your Ankles Shattered Like This In A Beer League Game Will Have You Questioning Everything On The Drive Home
For the most part, everybody overrates how good of an athlete they were back in their prime. Whether you peaked in high school, or college, or you haven't even begun to peak. Most people always think they were better than they actually were, and that they were right on the cusp of being great. If they would have trained a little harder here, or focused on giving a little more effort there. In your own mind, you could have been a superstar but it just never panned out.
Then one week you're playing at 10:45 on a Wednesday night, some little shit who is at least 10 years younger than you completely dog walks you on the blueline, puts it through your lets, has your ankles already going off for a line change, and now you're planted squarely on your ass. In the moment, you just brush it off as a pretty good play that kid made. The game is still going on, you can't let your teammates see you feeling sorry for yourself, you keep playing. Maybe you even laugh it off in the locker room after the game while the boys are deleting a few cold ones.
But in the solitude of your car on that drive home? When it's just you alone with your thoughts? That's a drive you take home slow. You don't even think about turning on the radio. You take that one home in silence and you think about everything that happened in life to lead you to this moment. Maybe you were never actually that good to begin with. Maybe you're trash right now because you've always been trash. Have you been getting completely dusted out there your entire playing career and somehow you've just repressed all of those memories? And it's in that moment when you have to make a hard decision--do you just give it all up, or do you truly love the game enough to keep going even though it's now settling in that you're not very good.
And you're right there for puck drop the same time next week.