libratum

Time for a confession of sorts that will probably make my mom cringe:

I used to avoid washing my soccer stuff at all costs.

You know how athletes have crazy lucky rituals and all: Michael Jordan always wore his UNC shorts under his Bulls shorts, Serena Williams is known to wear the same socks all through a tournament, Jason Terry wears five pairs of knee-high socks during games and sleeps in a pair of the opposing teams' shorts the night before a game...

Double shorts in for the dunk.

There's something about continuity that athletes must crave.  I mean...I participate in it too.  Whether with athletics or academics, I:

• kiss the ball before a free-throw
• tied my basketball shoes specifically: one in, one out
• wear my Messi jersey (it's number 10), my Real Salt Lake jacket, and some argyle socks to exams
• bounce the ball against the back wall (the gym we always played in was small) before a volleyball serve
• ensure I have two or three very sharp Ticonderoga pencils before any exam
• ate a raw potato before every soccer game 
• do a funky dance (shuffle between the posts and hit the cross bar a few times) every time I enter the goal
• eat a specific cereal before exams

And once upon a time, I avoided washing my soccer jersey at all costs.  I made it through most of the season, too.  It was good stuff.  (Same with my basketball shirt.  The shorts could be washed, but not the shirt.)

Everyone's reaction: "Oh GROSS, why on earth would you do that?!"

Well, for me it was a way to keep the luck of the previous games with me.  Whether we won or lost didn't matter because there was luck there either way, and I wanted to take the work of my own blood, sweat, and tears with me as I progressed through the sport.  I was determined to carry my past with me.

Eventually my jersey got washed and I didn't die, and my rituals have shifted as I've developed as an athlete...(yes, much to the relief of my teammates and my mother, I now wash my jerseys...)

But I was thinking on this the other day, and realized that in life as in sports, we must carry the past with us.  But there is an essential balance to doing that.

For example, never washing your jerseys is probably carrying a little too much of the past with you. It's probably not that healthy.

On the other hand, never taking the past with you could be disastrous...you shouldn't wear a brand new jersey to every game.

Certainly, there is a balance we must find between living in our pasts and moving on from our pasts: you can't live in the past; you'll either depress yourself worrying over past mistakes and things you can't change or just hold yourself back trying to maintain high school relationships to the same degree they were in 1982...or 2012.  But you also can't forsake the past; it is a tool for us to learn how to navigate through this experience called life.  We need to keep something with us to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.

 

I believe this is a balance that everybody has to determine for themselves, based on their own values and experiences.  And it takes years to figure something out, and once you've figured it out, it still needs adjusting now and again.

Just remember that it's probably okay to wash your jerseys and sometimes you might even survive with only one pencil on an exam.