The All-Star Cure

When ever Grandma Kris takes Finn for the day I find myself in a funk. I don't realize it at first but I start to slowly get bluer and bluer until I'm in a full fledged depression. When Kate asks my what's wrong I say "nothing". It's not true but I am not trying to be uncommunicative, I just haven't realized that anything is wrong. Kate has realized and when she keeps pushing it I get frustrated. This whole scene played out this past week as Finn spent Wednesday night through Friday evening with Grandma and TomTom. While Finn was gone I did very little with my free time. I read a bit, did some work for the paper, caught up on all things NBA, and laid around a lot. With Finn gone I am not sure what I'm doing home. If he is here then I am taking care of him, but when he's gone I am just lazy. When I was working and I had a day off I didn't feel this way but some how being a stay-at-home parent changes my perception as it does for society as a whole. The hardest thing to reconcile is that whether Finn is there or not my JOB is taking care of him. When Kate is off work she is not unemployed, and converesly when Finn is away I am not unemployed either. This seems like a simple concept to grasp but it is proving to be much more difficult for me.

Kate and I had a long talk last night getting to the bottom of this and other things. During that time I realized that there was something wrong with me when Kate was asking but I couldn't pin point it at the time. I also realized that I need to have a plan for when Finn is away, and I need to make that plan before he leaves or else I will find myself slipping back into no-Finn funk. Most importantly, to Kate anyway, I need to communicate what's going on even if I'm not sure what it is yet. When I'm depressed Kate assumes that it has to do with her and my refusal to communicate just confirms that diagnosis for her. So to recap: come to terms with my new Job, plan for Finn's absences, and communicate more.

But what does any of this have to do with the title? On Thursday night I got the chance to play in a basketball tournament at Church. I played on the Fountain Square Team and was the only one on the team that actually played basketball. We were severely spanked in the game but had a lot of fun in the process. Due to some lucky shooting in the first half we were only down by 9 points at halftime. The deficit quickly climbed to 30 early in the second half and hovered there for the rest of the game. After the game each team picked an all-star from the opposing team to play in the Sunday All-star game. I was picked from our team. One of the teams in the next game was short players and so I played for them as well and continued to shot really well. After that game I was chosen again by the other team. It felt really good to be an All-Star, to be chosen by the opposing team. It was a small tournament with over half the participents playing their first ball in over 10 years but it felt good to do well.

On sunday I played in the all-star game and did well. I wasn't the best out there but I competed and when it was over I didn't feel depressed any more. I felt good, I felt successful. I know it is silly but that basketball game was what I needed to break out of the funk. Once out of it I could talk for a long time about the hows, whys, and whats of it with Kate.