A Walk, A Hit, Some Hope — As yet unsettled

Day 28

———

It’s been a couple days since the last update. Today was Monday, which I didn’t think about until just now: it’s been four weeks.

On Friday, which was Day 25, and the next day, the day of my last update, the nights were hard. Saturday night was a regression. I absolutely couldn’t sleep. At all. Partially because of all the caffeine I drank to make it thru the day; partially, the pain.

I had to wake up at about 8am on Sunday. (Actually, I realized sometime mid-afternoon that my first lesson started 45 minutes later than I remembered, so I didn’t have to wake up until about 8:45, but that barely changes the math.) At about 5:45, when it was clear that sleep wouldn’t come, I realized I could just call in sick. I felt guilty about that (I feel guilty about it when I’m actually sick), but after maybe 20 more minutes, I realized that I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d either work on about an hour of sleep, at best, or I’d skip it and try again the next day.

I tried to make it Sunday,
but I got so damned depressed,
that I set my sights on Monday,
and I got myself undressed.
—America, Sister Golden Hair

———

My parents divorced when I was little, and never really spoke about each other. Their relationship wasn’t off-limits, but the conversations never really happened. There’d be the occasional comment or data point dropped into other conversations, but they avoided talking about it and I avoided asking.

Even fewer, were the happy-times anecdotes, but that song was one of them. One night, my parents, just dating then, were out at a bar or a nightclub or something. (They met and married in a small midwestern town, so it was likely just a bar; regardless, the place had a DJ and the ability to make requests.) Between songs, as my parents enjoyed their night, an incredibly drunk woman (this was the late-’70s) yelled, “Play Sister Golden Sister Hair!”

———

Sunday didn’t end up so bad. It was started (again, after very little sleep) by Game 6 of the ALCS — its final game. The Astros held a 4-2 lead for most of the game but left baserunners on base in far too many innings, remaining seemingly a base-hit away from breaking the game wide open, but never getting there — or a bad pitch away from losing it. The Yankees hung on, down just two runs, and, in the top of the 9th, because this is how baseball works, tied it on a devastating, crowd-silencing home run.

The Astros started the bottom of the 9th with back-to-back strikeouts. Not a good sign. George Springer then walked. Jose Altuve worked his at-bat to a 2-1 count. Then hit a high slider extremely hard… over the wall to left center.

Home run. Walk-off. Penant.

I looked at my iMac for a moment absolutely incapable of understanding that what I just saw happen really just happened. And, dumb as this may sound, it substantially altered my emotions. I got up and showered, smiling over the holy-shit-baseball!-ness of it all: an all-time ALCS moment by the Yankees, an at-bat we’ll be talking about in a generation, being nearly immediately wiped away by an even bigger one by the Astros, altering not just future baseball history, but rewriting the home run that happened just 5 batters prior.

I also managed to talk a bit with a friend on Sunday, the first actual, adult conversation I’ve had in over a month. And to drink a pretty-fantastic bubble tea, too. I moved around a bit, as well, including a long walk to a home store while listening to some funny podcasts. Each of these helped, and made the day remarkably better than Friday night or Saturday had been.

———

It’s Day 28. Four weeks since he died; four weeks of this. Yet there are moments of light. The lightness brings its own pain, and guilt, and it’s difficult to look at because my eyes are also sensitive, but it’s there. And that’s new.

終