It's All Relative

A baked potato in the oven, that would be comfort food. Meatloaf as well. Perhaps only those of us who grew up in the Midwest know what I am talking about with these particular choices.

Why do I need comfort? Why do any of us?

This Sunday night, I have no real complaint. Life is life; there's always a mixture of good and bad in there, so your perspective depends on how you think about it.

So I'm just being nice to myself tonight; I'm in a very good mood.

Not because I had a ton of fun this morning, preparing for one of the two IRS audits that require me, day after day, to reconstruct the year 2009.

I don't know if you have ever reconstructed a year, for any purpose, but I have many times, mainly in the context of memoir-writing, not IRS-defending, although lately it seems I've had to do a lot of that too.

What kind of year was 2009?

Well, I had a job for the first week, then was laid off. The startup that employed me didn't survive past that summer.

Knowing that the economy was sinking, I spent the year trying to drum up consulting work. I met with person after person after person, trying to use my networks to find work.

I succeeded to an extent, but it was not a very successful year financially. Thus the IRS audit is ironic. I didn't have a very good year, despite a ton of effort, which included around a dozen business trips all over the country.

My kids were all three years younger than they are now. We still had soccer games, that's for sure.

So the rest of this post will concern soccer, or rather what it is like being a soccer parent.

My son played in the extreme heat south of here today and his team won, 1-0. As usual, he played well, with a few lapses, but nothing that led to the other team scoring against his keeper.

Meanwhile, in the stands, other parents and I were both cheering our boys on and sharing our angst about so many issues -- standardized tests, the poor quality of public education, the dilemma of helping our sons figure out how important their athletic ability should figure in their choice of colleges this fall.

We are the parents of high school juniors.

At one point in today's contest, my son sustained a major collision with an onrushing player, but he walked away healthy.

Thank god.

That's another thing we parents share -- a fear about our kids' health, as they compete at higher and higher levels, where the game becomes almost unbearably physical.

Late in this game, an awful thing happened. One of his teammates was caught in a three-man collision and had to be carried off the field. Later he had to be carried (by an ice cream truck) to a car waiting to speed him to a hospital.

He appeared to have suffered an extremely serious injury, probably a broken ankle.

This event cast a huge shadow over our kids and their victory. It is precisely the kind of disaster we all fear most and which, at times, seems inevitable in kids' sports.

***

Maybe the reason I seek comfort food tonight is not for myself but for the family of Aidan's teammate. I hope he is okay, can heal quickly, and that this doesn't end his ability to keep playing the "beautiful game."

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