BitterSweetLife

It is getting harder to play basketball. And it’s not just because my knees are kind of lax in their response time.

This morning I laced up my Adidas, braided my hair into cornrows, smoothed on my peel-off tattoo, and headed over to the U of Missouri-KC, our local metro college. I hadn’t been in awhile, and my hoops skills were crying out for us to spend some quality time together. As I cruised toward the campus, I got my head game in order, and when I walked into the field house I was ready to bring a few tear drops. That was before I got bounced by the stiff at the front desk.

Ever since UMKC beefed up their security measures, it’s been tougher to get onto the hardwood. I had to start shelling out $5 every time I played, which decreased the frequency of my visits. But the kicker was that I had to be signed in as someone’s guest—and I hated to coerce any of my UMKC friends into showing up at the gym just to get me in. I’d circumnavigated the issue by hanging out by the front desk and asking friendly-looking students if they would mind signing for me—a ploy with a 100% success rate: Paperwork filled in, me in the gym, everybody happy. But this morning’s bouncer wasn’t buying it.

No, the tune today was death to the casual hoopster. My host had to “meet me at the door” or there would be no hoops joy. I couldn’t exploit an agreeable stranger. And no, I couldn’t walk inside and scan the gym for a familiar face. When you meet someone that stolid, it’s time to call it a day.

As I left the field house, I walked into a grey-sky drizzle. Perfect. With the eagerness of dead leaves spiraling onto the muddy street, I drove home to keep working on my research paper.

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In lieu of my hoops career having just ended at UMKC, I may have to join a rec league. The paper on “burnout,” which I just finished, makes at least that much clear. If I am going to avoid burnout (“overload,” “breakdown,” etc.), I will need a “safe place” to help me do it. I visualize this as a place where I can play hoops without fear of reparation, without fear of exclusion, and without extraneous fees. With the weather getting colder, the need for me to discover this “safe place” becomes all the more urgent.

This secure location will be a place where I can meet with a “small group” especially tailored to meet my needs. As I see it, this group should consist of about ten people, perhaps one or two more if subs are required. In the words of psychologists Olsen and Grosch, this group will be a place where I can explore “my vulnerable self as well as my grandiosity,” and I think they’re really onto something here. This type of specialized treatment (let’s call it “court-therapy”) needs to allow for a balanced offensive and defensive game, as well as unselfish passing. I should feel free to dish the ball to an open teammate, and not always score it myself. Killer crossovers and shiny dimes should be acceptable currency in this group.

Looking back, I realize that my experiences at UMKC often lacked this holistic goodness. The stress caused by loitering by the front desk, merged with the uncertainty caused by never knowing whether I’d find a good game, hardly made for psychosomatic health. I see this now.

This morning was painful, but perhaps it was for the best.