I'm tired. The kind of tired that 2 consecutive days of sleeping in won't fix. Sometimes I feel like I desperately need a vacation. Its funny the reason I picked the job I have is because at one point I loved it so much I felt I would never need much time off. I spent my whole life watching my father work a job he hated. Unfortunately he brings his work home. I can't blame him; maybe I'm biased but I think he has one of the hardest jobs there is. I don't know how anyone could work in a profession where you watch people die... people your children's age or your wife's age. A profession where if you make a mistake it may cost someone their life. A profession where you have to go into a waiting room full of family and friends and tell them the person they love and care about isn't coming out of that operating room. That's heavy. To look people in the eye and tell them you did everything you could but it wasn't enough. How could you not feel for them? How could you not second guess yourself? How could you not get discouraged? How could you leave that at work?
I'm very proud of my dad. He is so smart and he works so hard. He went to Wake Forest University and then was in the first ever med school class at East Carolina University. He took out loans to pay his own way for all of that. I still remember when he paid off all his college, I was in 10th grade. He then went to a special fellowship in Arizona. All in all I think he was about 32 years old when he finally started working. He works so hard. Such long hours. Being on call must be the worst... staying late at the hospital operating on emergencies, coming home in the early hours of the morning, crawling into the bed only for that dreaded beeper to emit that gut-wrenching beeping noise and having to immediately get back up and head right back to where you just were without getting any rest.
My dad always provided for me and I am very thankful for that. I think he wanted me to have and do all the things he never had or did. Still when you are young you don't care so much about that. You want to spend time with your dad and you want that time to be well spent. My mom always tells a story of when I was about 3 years old and my dad would leave early for work and come back well after a 3 year old's bedtime. One day he came home while I was still awake, I ran and gave him a big hug and shouted, "Oh Dad we love it when you come to visit!" It killed him that he had to work so much, but he wanted to provide for us. I guess that's why I don't care about money. I want to work a job I love so when I come home to my family I will be in a good mood. I will be able to give them all of me. Don't get me wrong, I want to provide for them too... shelter, food, clothing, school, extracurricular opportunities, etc but I want to spend quality time with them. I want whatever time I have to give them to be about them, not what happened at work.
I don't want it to sound like my dad was never around or that I had some type of troubled youth because that is not the case. I had two very loving parents and I'm extremely thankful for that. I'm just trying to explain why I chose a career that makes essentially nothing (by America's standards... I know I am still blessed internationally compared to all the poverty in the world) because I wanted to do something that wasn't a job to me... something that wasn't work.
But all that is starting to change. I don't have a wife and I don't have any kids but I'm starting to bring my work home. I let things bother me that shouldn't. My perspective is off. I wrestle with the voices inside my head, arguing along with them. Events transpire that provoke anger from inside of me. I believe the root of that anger stems from how much I care. I try to not to care too much. I don't know how. Apathy can't be the answer but caring so much is killing me, where is the balance? I try to step back and remember that I'm merely helping college kids who are playing a game that is supposed to be fun. Is it fun? I don't know. My job is not serious, its not life or death, its not the emergency room looking down on a child who is dying, and its not extreme poverty and disease that exists in third world countries. Still I get angry and sometimes I stay angry when I'm home. My mind races, I have trouble sleeping even though the alarm goes off every morning at 4:30am. Why do sports even exist? I always thought sports had been around so long because they were entertaining (fun to play, fun to watch) and possessed character developing qualities. I was wrong, they are about money now. The very evil I was trying to escape. That's why these people take everything so serious. They want more money, they want more success. Maybe they think that will complete them, make them happy, satisfied. To the coaches and administrators the sports are their life. These sports determine their salary, their status, their identity. But to the kids it should just be a part of their life. They should be a student with various interests and passions that just happens to play a sport. Yes they should try hard and work hard at their sport as well as school but they aren't professionals. Their sport does not define them as a person. I used to see everything so clearly... its just kids playing a game. I'm starting to get sucked in... I don't care about the money or the success but I'm starting to take it serious, more serious than it should be taken. I picked a career that was a hobby to me. I love weightlifting and I love helping people so it was the perfect fit. I used to wake up smiling, excited for each day. Excited about possibility to have an opportunity to positively influence another person's life. Maybe through weightlifting and training they would find or develop qualities they could apply to their daily life... their sport, school, work, being a better person. I think I've become like the people I criticize, I'm too focused in my own little world to see the big picture, to maintain my sanity. They've sucked me in. Now I'm becoming crazy.
Head spinning and throbbing, my vision blurred, I can't get my bearings... have I contracted their mental instability? I start desperately searching for rest, for an escape. I retreat into a familiar one. My feet on the platform and the bar in my hands. I am elsewhere. They can't touch me or my thoughts. Everything is clear now. I only feel the pain and joy weightlifting brings. Maybe thats why I like it so much because it delivers extremes... either way you are going to feel something. Sometimes I try to lift so hard/much that I'm too tired to care about anything else. But it is only temporary, at some point I have to take my adistars off. I look for another, it comes in the form of a truck that serves Mexican cuisine. Eating at the taco truck always makes me feel like I have travelled to another country. It blocks the streets and stores of Auburn from my view... it surrounds me with people that speak a language that is not my own. My devoted group of followers and I have found an escape and we fill it with laughter. But it too is temporary. Why do I seek rest from people, activities, and places in which it will not be given to me? Why don't I seek Christ? Only He can give me rest. Only He can give me an eternal perspective. Only He can give me life and life more abundantly. Are the oases I have created idols? Are they sinful? Have my escapes become addictions? I am accomplishing what I first set out to accomplish? Is it still about developing people who happen to be athletes through my daily interaction with them during training? Or have I gotten it twisted and now I'm too focused on pushing weight and correct technique (the temporary) that I've forgotten about the eternal? I've forgotten they have souls, souls that matter to God. Salvation, forgiveness, eternity, love... thats what matters not wins and losses or how much they can squat, clean, and snatch. I love the wrong things. I'm focusing on the wrong things. How did I get here? More importantly how do I get back? I need to get back to the place where God is my rock, my quiet place, my strength, my safe refuge, my comforter. To the place where I care about the person first and their competency to perform as a collegiate athlete second. I pray that God would help me find His way. I'm thankful that He hasn't given up on me.
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