By Mike Moritz
I don't get what I'm missing. I have everything in front of me. It's all right there! The baseball, the acting, the drive, the belief in the universe, health, family, friends, comfort.
I feel sorry for myself, and I always catch myself doing it.
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The nicest hotel, so he had claimed, he'd ever stayed in. He decided to give himself some time to himself, outside of the hotel room, late at night, away from his high-strung mother. He sat in a chair, at a part of the hotel where people had stirred away from, put his head back and looked up at the beautiful glass accross the roof.
Then his eyes shut, quickly and agressively. He felt a lump in his throat but self talked himself out of crying, something that he'd been doing lately.
*He feels sorry for himself, and he always catches himself doing it.*
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Then why do I feel this. I don't ask for much. All I want is....well I won't directly say them.
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The worst summer of his life, which happily, doesn't even compare to others around the country. And yet, for him, it couldn't have gotten worse. The things that he put the energy into...all failed.
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I want female compionship. And if I'm such a great guy, why can't I land one for myself. Am I missing signs? Or am I asking for too much?
Or do I just not deserve a great girl that wants every piece of me? That's the question I find myself asking. Followed with a "Why?"
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One. More. Time. He stood on the ferry one last time. Coming home from his very last tournament, marking the end of a summer of baseball that did not serve him what he had hoped; so it became a timer as he waited for it to reach 0.00.00 when he realized the biggest thing he had wanted...wasn't being given to him, no matter the hard work.
He stood in the same place he always did, watching the waves following the bulky, white, run-down boat like his anxiety, which had been creeping on up him lately.
And when he turned around for a quick glance toward the front of the ferry, his sight was blocked by four men.
All four of them were dressed in the same uniform: gray and light brown with tightly wound boots up to their shins and a hat. What was the story from these guys? Do we ever know how other's people lives- their languages of their own worlds- brought them to this point today? We never know these people's- to us, strangers- stories.
He asked himself this. How did these brave (and built) young men get here? What terrible hishaps might they have been through that made them still want to the heavy, longsleeved Army uniform? The four of them, one black, three white and all acted as if they were one family brothers. I mean, after all, isn't that what the Army movies promote them as?
Or was there a different story?
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I put in so much work. And I sat, and sat, and sat....and sat some more this summer. And never once let my work ethic slip. And never once did I get rewarded. My reward?
A lashing out by our closer from this past high school season who'd become so cocky that he thought he was capable of playing at...Stony Brook. And Villanova. A kid who throws barely 80, and that's his only pitch.
What did I do to deserve "Fuck you Mike, it's gonna be an all junior-outfield. You won't get a drop of playing time. Your attitude sucks and you don't have a good work ethic."
..........
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Did they all hate eachother?
Hate.
Hatred.
It's such a strong trait. An emotion so powerful that the lengths it could go to be satisfied would be...death. To oneself; to others; to a passion of a life.
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What did I do to deserve that? The hatred poured our of him and he just kept going as I walked away, showing no sign on my face of being phased but feeling ashamed; is this the treatment I really do deserve? From the universe?
And the question isn't anymore "What did I do to deserve that?"
It's "When is the universe going to punish me again?"
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The summer came and the summer went. The bad was bad and the good, while rare, was good because good can't be good without good. But now I look for opportunities to help others in an effort to be more selfless, guessing that maybe I was being selfish- but with an uncertainty in that notion.
Another year of Keewaydin pasted by campers as I found myself wishing I was still a kid again, going on trips, walking across the small foot-bridge, sun bathing on the big wooden raft or having my brother watch me in a canoe, seeing my flashing paddle gleam as pulled off dock-landing after dock-landing after dock-landing; the first taste of meditation I had experienced in my life, yet unaware of the effects.
Today, I go to school, and that's what matters for now. Just the same in baseball- small bites, being present because as Keewaydin's own Larry Hayes said it best: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery and today's a gift, that's why they call it the present."
Thank you.
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