Soccer, my first love.

  At the age of four I encountered my first love,  I had just been enrolled in the local soccer club.  I needed something, an outlet you could say, in order to ensure the sanity of my parents and keep me out of the pre-k juvenile detention center miles from our home in Topeka, Kansas.  Needless to say, my life would never quite be the same.....

   I managed to be trouble even before making my grand exit from the womb, which may explain the reason I am the way I am to this day.  I was a c-section, predictable, given my mom's small frame.  My dad, bless him, must think he is a reincarnation of the late-great Richard Pryor despite being an Irish Catholic son of six with the comedic prowess you'd expect from someone who has been working in the civil engineering business for years, explaining my problematic birth as such: "His head was so big that we couldnt get him out, he's SHAWTY BIG-HEAD."  Needless to say my family keeps him chained in his office where he is seldom allowed out due to social inadequacy. I'd like to imagine my infantile-self as one of uncanny intellect and prowess for the philosophy of the womb, pondering endlessly the enigmatic truths of prenatal life.  Most likely, at the time of my suspected birth I was pouring over some truth of the womb and was upset by the unruly disturbance that was my mother in labor, thus, refusing to dislodge myself  from my warm, quiet sanctuary.  I was removed from my mother screaming and didnt stop,  I was a collic baby. 

    Time went on, and with it my collic eventually evolved into what I'd like to call an insatiable lust for life.  As a toddler I was extremely opinionated for my age.  I'd attempt to have an intelligent conversation with some of my young colleagues on the playground and all I would get in return was frothy toddler babble one would expect from a child of two.  Frustration over my inability to communicate with these babboons dripping with spittle is what first drove me into my drug addiction.  I'd escape this ruthless reality if only for a few moments through one of my mother's glorious breasts.

   I spiralled, always looking for my next fix.  I recall one particular instance where I succumbed to forcing myself on a mother of an acquintance due to my own mothers adamant refusal.  This particular episode landed me in time out,  I knew it was only a matter of time.  For an entire twenty minutes I was confined to a particularly solitary corner in my house drifting in and out of consciousness, made sublime by the foreign mother's milk. It is in that barren state that I first acquainted myself with the poems of Robert Frost.  High, barely concious, and wasting away god spoke to me through Frost's "The Road not taken."  While in the depths of hell itself I resolved to change my ways, for I would be three soon, my mouth, already almost full of teeth........it was time to grow up.

  Successfully, I remained sober only relapsing in my dreams, and yet, I was more lost than ever before.  My young mind was frought with questions as to what this existance held for me.  "What is my purpose, why am I here, what is that angry porcelain beast and why does my mother insist I defecate into its growling mouth?"  My third birthday proved to be the beginning of a particularly difficult year, starting immediately with my birthday party.  All was well and a good time was had by all in the first few hours spent in celebration of my life.  Then, inevitably, it was time for my relatives and fair-minded friends to bestow me with gifts, which admittedly, I was quite excited for.  My parents, at my request, pulled together what meager supply of money we had and gave me a complete collection of Shakespeare's works which was accepted with an immense amount of gratitude and a single tear.  It continued like this, my receiving presents, without incident until it was my Grammy's turn to present.  I ravenously tore at the wrapping paper, my grammy smiling expectantly.  At first I was confused.  "What is this....thing.......this alien artifact standing on two rather bowed legs with little front arms that did not match its body?" It looked rather reptilian, but unlike any reptile I had ever seen before and it was clear that this inanimate object was a model of something quite larger than itself. Then, quite suddenly, it sprang to life!  With eyes that now glowed yellow it looked at me as if it could see through the depths of my soul and began to waddle toward me, letting loose a bloodcurrtling roar.  I would have relentless nightmares for years.

   I'm assuming my beautiful, loving mother needed a break from her odd little child whom attracted trouble, and it was she who introduced me to my love.  At first I was quite opposed to the idea of playing an organized sport, it seemed barbaric.  The concept of running endlessly with a "team" of giggling idiots for the amusement of their equally dimwitted spawn machines was not, originally, an apealing notion.  Reluctantly,  I took to the field looking ridiculous in my over-sized uniform and genital hugging shorts. I expected the normal American concept of a coach;  An oversized, balding man with a history of alcoholism, but what I got was quite the opposite.  My coach, my angel, with hair like a sandy beach, a voice that tickled the pit of my stomach, and eyes deeper than the Mariana Trench, greeted me on the field.  I would do anything to please her.  I practiced like a wild fiend under her watchful eyes, and would practice more while at home with thoughts of her praise guiding me.... but something along the way changed within me.  After a time I no longer lead drills, ran wildly, or scored goals for her pleasure, but instead, for mine.  While on the field I was cut off from the endless array of thoughts that plagued every moment of my existance, while on the field I was someone entirely different.  I felt like an incandescant version of myself, caught in a parallel universe of pure competition.  I loved the feeling of victory and loathed defeat.  I had found my sanctuary, my salvation.