Love Hate

It’s been asked why if I love basketball, why wouldn’t I want to play? Interesting concept loving the game but hating to play it.. For me it’s quite different than anyone else. Basketball, as a few know, use to be my entire life, my one and only love, my identity, and basically the essence of life itself. During the hardest times in my life it was my one and only release.

 Healthy or not that’s how it worked. When my mom was super sick and in the hospital all the time, I would wait until my dad left to go to the hospital after he was done working, throw shorts on and a hoodie (keep in mind this was like November/December),  go outside and let it out on our make shift court in the drive way. I could never talk about how hard different things were or my feelings, but the perfect thing about basketball was it couldn’t ask. I could let it all out .. every emotion I couldn’t express with words… the sadness, the distress, the anger, the confusion, anything and everything. And then we hit a time when Basketball as a team sport had one objective… Winning. I do understand that winning is the goal of a sport or at least to most people; however, playing with the sole purpose to win ruined everything for me. No longer was it a release but rather the creator of more stress, anxiety, and intensity. We played to win not for enjoyment. What happened to the days where you played your heart out and enjoyed it regardless of the score? Somehow it we always did better as we loosened up and enjoyed the game. Even the days of a spontaneous ridiculously funny awesome game of 21 where we played hard through sweat and blood but laughed so hard we cried faded out to only a distant memory. Thus, began my hate for the very thing I loved. Talk about an epic internal battle. It took me walking away from the thing I loved most to realize what matters most. Basketball or life it’s all the same, it’s what you are in it for that makes the game.