The temptation is to not write.
Because: what if I'm wrong?
And also: it's so easy not to write. So easy not to document.
But what if -- what if -- this keeps going.
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Let's start here: the same place it all seemed to start.
On or around May 20, 2013, I had a significant realization, about life. Until that "First-Person" moment, I had basically lived the life I thought I was "supposed to live."
I call it a "first-person moment" because -- as I've described in a few other writings -- it felt like the moment in a video game, when you're watching the opening sequence to a new level or new "world,"
and then suddenly, the game zooms into the back of the head of the main character,
and instead of getting a bird's eye view of the world,
you now have an active role in it.
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I don't blame anyone who says, "HOW DID YOU NOT REALIZE YOU HAD FREE WILL, before then!!!???"
I don't know. I guess I always knew I had free will. I knew I could choose cereal or grits. (I always chose cereal)
Wait. No. I really didn't.
I didn't know I could buy avocados. I didn't know I could eat healthy.
I thought I was who I was.
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To understand how I've gotten this good at basketball, at this age, and with this body,
we have to understand that sentence.
"I thought I was who I was."
Let's focus on the first "was" in that sentence. Because it doesn't mean "was." What I actually mean, when I write that, is "was always going to be."
But I shortened it. Because...well, I don't know why. Maybe I thought it saved time.
So that sentence doesn't exactly just mean, "I thought I was who I was."
More precisely, it means: "I thought I was always going to be who I was."
That moment -- in May, almost 2 years ago -- was when I understood that part of "being alive" means you
can change your patterns.
We are not watching a movie, in which we are the character, and we yell at the screen for the person to "stop doing that!"
That was how I lived my life. --It's how I still live many moments, in my life, to this day. Learning to be "present" has not been a "lightswitch" type of experience. It has been a slow, difficult, and challenging build -- like a locomotive, slowly gaining steam, inch by churning inch.
I would have quit many times, by now. But once you have that first realization, it helps from then on. I've tripped up many times -- for weeks at a time, even. But the memory of that moment has been a sort of True North, on my compass of self-improvement.
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It was about a month later -- sometime in June of 2013, I believe -- that I started focusing my romantic attention on a cartoonishly-sexy bartender I met at the now-thankfully-closed "Tea Lounge," in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Our story is less than two years old, and already has many twists and turns. But the simple version for any outsider is this: I was just smart enough to propose to her this past summer (June of 2014), and she continues to fundamentally change how I live my life, and how good I feel about it.
It was this girl -- Miss Butterfly Starfish -- who convinced me not to quit, 3 weeks into my re-birthed basketball career.
At that time (the fall of 2013), I was frail and underweight -- looking back now, it's a real possibility that I was malnourished. I ate nothing but junk food and dollar-slices of pizza. I did not drink water. I stayed out late, and slept through most of my days. Unemployed and unproductive, it wasn't a great stretch of my life.
When someone describes their partner as a "ray of sunshine," it always feels phony to me. But that's the best analogy I have. She was the first day of spring, for me. She didn't switch to a 95-degree day, right away. She was just...nice. She was warm.
She was that ray of sunshine, that made my bud poke its head out of the soil. I've devoted the rest of my life to her -- not just as a thank you, but as a selfish way of living in that sunny spring, for the rest of my life.
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There are others. Too many to count. The last week of 2012, I started to work out with my friends Drew Dowdey and Lawson Leong. That initial stretch of focusing on my physical health was instrumental in everything that came after.
Koji Frahm has been an inspiration, throughout this past 18 months.
Even in the past month, I've gotten great advice from my teammate Su, and great encouragement from my teammate Chris. I'll always be appreciative of Curt, who invited me to play on the team I'm currently on, at Basketball City.
I've gotten pointers of how to work out better from just about every employee at the Bed-Stuy YMCA. Their afternoon and weekend pick-up games have helped shaped how I play basketball.
I'll always be thankful to Frank, who runs the BIJ basketball league here in Brooklyn. For the low, low price of $20 per game, he gave me minutes. He made me a starter, before I deserved to be one. Even in a rec league -- nothing helps a player grow, more than minutes.
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And so here we are. Today. February 2, 2015.
I don't know. I don't even know what that question means, anymore.
I used to be so bad,
I couldn't make my 7th grade team.
Or my 8th grade team.
Or my 9th grade team.
I couldn't play on the 10th grade team.
I couldn't play on the 11th grade team.
And that was at a suburban high school, outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- not exactly a basketball "hot spot."
I know I wasn't good enough to win Frank's crappy BIJ league.
I know I wasn't good enough to average a double-double in it (just barely).
I know I worked my butt off while I played in that league,
and ended up getting noticed by Curtis,
who was looking to put a team together.
I know I was good enough to get picked up as a starting center on that team.
I know in 9 games, I scored in double-figures 1 time.
I know in the championship game -- which we won -- I sat for the final 10 minutes. So I know I was not one of the 5 best players, on that team.
I know I worked hard, during the offseason -- which lasted for about a month, at the end of this past fall. I know I worked on my ballhandling, and my shot, and tried to work on my vertical (though without enough discipline, it was not a successful first attempt).
I know that in this new league -- the "Basketball City Monday North" league -- I have struggled to find my rhythm.
I know our team -- the Brooklyn Ballers -- is 2-3. I know in our last game, I was our starting center, and I was held scoreless. I know the other team played a midget.
I know I'm not supposed to call them that.
I know we lost that game.
I know I was on the bench, at the end of that game.
I know my plus-minus in that game was a +3.
I know we lost by 1 point.
I know that I was physically manhandled by the opposing big men, in that game.
I know that since that game -- 3 weeks ago, today -- I have worked harder than I have at basketball, at any time since high school.
I know I put up over 2400 shots in January, and
I know I've put up over 1900 shots in the past 4 days alone.
I know I did over 500 push-ups, in January.
I know I did over 100, this morning alone.
I know I feel better about my body than I ever have.
I don't know what the future will be.
But I like my chances.
I like my team's chances.
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I may write again. I may not.
You may have to get off the internet,
If you want to know the rest of the story.
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Sending my best buzz,
The Bee
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