Fear and Reprieve

When I was in high school, I played basketball. Lots and lots of basketball. It was hell. In elementary school and junior high school it had been great -- and egotistical though it may sound, I hadn't been three-quarters bad -- but in high school it all went away. My stomach still sinks when I think about it and, shoulders shrugging, I'd still like to know what went wrong. Somewhere inside I still feel bummed. I had these plans, see. These plans to go to college on a real scholarship, to make the varsity my sophomore year, to be the point guard, to play.

But it didn't turn out like that. Lots of my life feels that way when I think of it. I watched a lot of the movie that came out at Christmas a few years ago, The Polar Express, with tears in my eyes, because I understood what the little boy meant when he said, "Christmas just doesn't work out for me." I feel that way. Life just doesn't work out for me.

Starting, I suppose, with basketball. I guess the problem must have been me (am I not supposed to say that?), maybe I wasn't so good anymore (it seems like I was, though). Perhaps the chemistry with the first coach, who left after my sophomore year to be an assistant at a big college, was a little bit off? Certainly I had no chemistry with the coach who came after her, who made me feel terrible about me and who I still bitterly wage war with, deep in my heart, far back in the lost places of my young girl's mind.

Some wounds seem like they shouldn't matter as much as they do. For me it's this basketball thing, but only in part. Only in part because I'm starting to think that life doesn't work out all that well for anyone. We all seem so sure it's working out well for the other guy, but the more I talk to him, the more he keeps telling me how great I seem to have it, or if not me, then you. I'd be a pretty sad sack of potatoes if I thought I hoed this row alone. It'd also be a pretty good farmer's market if basketball were my only potato, or if that one coach were my only foe. But I've blundered more than that, and in my mind I've got my finger in quite a few faces. Plus, let's don't forget I'm battling some actual, tangible enemies. Endometriosis, I'm talking to you.

Back to basketball. I remember there was one game when that coach came down extra-hard on me. Told me on the way to the locker room at half-time that he couldn't see any reason why he should let me play anymore. We were playing one of the less-than teams in our league, and we were not playing them very well. But I was trying as hard as I could. I've never been the sort of person who responded well to more pressure. I never, ever need more pressure. Looking back, that was part of the chemistry disconnect. If I ever would have thought for one second that he really believed I could do it, I'm sure we both would have been surprised by the results. But I always knew that he expected me to fail. It was a crushing burden to bear.

I really have no idea what happened in that game, if we won or if we lost or how much I played in the second half. But something happened that night for which I will always be grateful. I got home and it was winter in Idaho, and I put on my sweats, and my headphones with my old Walkman tapeplayer, and I went out to run. It was a black, black night. I don't know if my parents were home or if they even knew I left. I just remember that I went out to run.

I ran so hard, and for so long, and I remember that there was a point at which -- for just a moment -- I didn't feel scared. I didn't care. I didn't feel the pressure. I knew it didn't matter. I just ran. I lived in the same house for nearly every day of my childhood, and so every one of those streets was familiar. It was dark, but I wasn't lost. I realized that night that I know how to be alone without being lonely. I realized that things can be so hard, but you can still be there. That's it. You're still there.

For just a few minutes I was with me and I wasn't scared.

There are so many reasons to be afraid. It is good to be afraid. It means you understand what you're up against. But it is good to know that you can be counted down and out; you can, in fact, be utterly powerless, and still find your way in a cold, black night. Nothing got better after that run, not for a long, long time. But that run was still a good thing.

It is good to be afraid. Good, too, are moments of reprieve, even when they come in the dark.