Come Back, Kid
It’s been many weeks since my last post. I wish I could say I’ve been too busy to write, hustling between training and tournaments and soulful yoga retreats. But the truth is I’ve lost my way a bit with the Second Half. After six months of hard work and clean living, resulting in some of the best soccer of my life, the last three months have been one long backslide into oblivion. To use the game-clock metaphor (albeit an American football one), I had a career first half, followed by a horrific third quarter.
Fortunately, there’s still time to turn things around in the fourth, before the whistle blows on this little year-long experiment.
The setback started with the holiday slide in December, followed by a string of nagging injuries in January that kept me from training hard. But the real dagger came on February 16th, the day my 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll recall that my 5-year-old son received the same diagnosis back in August, about six weeks into the Second Half. That was tough, no doubt, but I remember feeling inspired to stay the course of healthy living, knowing it would give me much-needed strength to deal and cope.
When we got the news about Emmy, the only thing I felt was a huge case of the fuck-its.
That’s more or less been my mindset for the last two months. I think (hope) I’ve been there for the kids, as we continue to adjust to life with double T1Ds. But any claim to living my best personal life—physically, mentally, or spiritually—would be a bunch of crap. This is evident in many ways, from the steady weight gain to the marital strife to the social withdrawal. But the clearest indication is my abysmal performance on the field. I have no touch out there, no engine, and no confidence. I honestly can’t remember the last time I found the back of the net.
It took me four months to drop 30 pounds and reach my target training weight of 175 lbs. I started to put the pounds back on over the holidays, with the biggest gain happening in the last two months. The goal now is to get back down to 175 pounds by July 14th, then hold it there.
It doesn’t help that my slide has coincided with the chance to join a few different league teams, as opposed to the usual pickup. The faster pace has shined a 1000-watt light on my lack of endurance. Sure, there’s a tactical element as well: I haven’t played organized soccer in many years, so my positional awareness and feel for the game aren’t particularly sharp. But six months ago, when my confidence was soaring, I think I would have been a quick study. Instead I’m a lost puppy dog.
Like I said, there’s still time to turn it around, 77 days, to be exact. That’s how long until the one-year mark of the start of the Second Half. The up-and-down journey has taught me many things about the way my mind and body work. It’s time to use that learning and self-knowledge to get back on track and finish at the top of my game—not the best player on the field, but the best player I can be.
What happens then? I’ll have to sort that one out in stoppage time.