Touch Football

I meet with my friends once a week to play touch football. Sometimes we play well together and I actually make a slight difference to the outcome of the match. Other times I sit on the wing hoping I don’t make an ass of myself. Lately I’ve the feeling that I want to be good at this game. I want to smoothly catch a pass side step my opponent to slide into score. It’s a simple dream, not very big but it’s what I want.

 My life has become filled with small dreams. Little things that I would like to do to make small differences. I feel the most joy in these small places, the most connected to who I am and those around me just by achieving them. It’s so weird that these small things now elude me.

My friends are runners, they dive to tag in defense they step around the edge of the field and score tries. They are fast and smart and are so much better at coping with everything in the game. I find myself wondering what I am doing in this team. Which misinformed person thought to include me? Or was it just whom ever they could find?

I remember as a kid being so good at Physical Culture. Effortlessly climbing trees, doing cartwheels sometimes the splits. Every year I would win club championship, there was no question that I would not. I understood the game and played without even trying “How could anyone find it hard?” At school I danced circles around the other students. I was always ahead so quick to understand a concept. Even now I feel faster than everyone else but I don’t try to win because my I don’t think my body can keep up.

I would never have thought the small wins would keep me so impassioned. I always assumed I would drive ahead of the pack whipping my flag in the air and let everyone eat my dust. If I wasn’t winning I wouldn’t be happy. I look at my friends and the choices they make mesmerize me. They seem to steadily work towards a life I want but can’t have. I can’t have a partner, I know this and I know why I can’t have one. For some reason I feel this is linked to my being able to play sport well. I don’t know why I just know that the point at which I stopped being good at sport was the point I closed the book on ever being in a happy relationship.