Sing, You Fat Bitch! Sing!

Why is the fat lady singing? The football season is over. Finally, truly over. We ended up having slim playoff hopes because another team faltered badly in the second half of the season, but that finally died too. I am left with very ambivalent feelings about the entire experience. Having reread my last blog entry from a few months ago, I can still distinctly remember those feelings. That worthlessness sits very close to the surface still.

But I ended up doing okay for myself.

I did talk to the coach and though I didn’t say everything I wanted to or maybe should have, I said the one thing that was most important to me.

I feel like I’m just a name and number on the roster.

It shocked her. I know it did. I could see it. And in that reaction, I learned something about my head coach. She’s a FEMALE head coach. She looked stricken when I told her how I felt. She wants to win. She desperately wants to win. But she wants everyone to like her too.

Fuck that.

It changed a lot of things for me. I learned to take everything she said with a large grain of salt, because whether she did it consciously or not, often what she said was what she thought I wanted to hear.

Wrong.

What I wanted was the truth, but she couldn’t give me that. She couldn’t give me an honest evaluation of my skills because she had no idea what I was capable of. I don’t even know what I’m capable of at this point.

The insane thing is, I want to find out. Yes, there, I said it. I want to play again.

I want to know what I’m capable of and I want to play football with those amazing women again. My teammates made all the difference in the world for me in the second half of the season.

That’s as it should be I suppose.

Some of the key players probably won’t be back next year. I’m not entirely heartbroken over that. Shitty thing of me to say, but the truth. Most if not all of the people that I want to stand out on the field with will be back though and I want to see how I measure up. I want to spend another season sweating and bleeding and laughing and crying with all of them.

Good grief! I’ve lost my mind!