Wow. It has been 48 hours and I still have not accepted that the Patriots lost in the SuperBowl. This will be the first step to my recovery: acknowledging that the Patriots have lost. Right now I still can't do it. I am in denial. I can honestly say that, as a sports fan, and even more so as a human being, I have never experienced such a jolting, tragic, and heart-ripped-from my chest moment in my entire life. This probably says something about who I am, in a negative way, but it is true. As I watched Eli Manning float that ball to Burress in the endzone, I became physically ill. I was actually nauseaous, and for the first time in a long time it had nothing to do with Jack Daniels. I was light headed, my heart felt like a cold piece of lead, and it had sunk to my lower abdomen like the body of a small child, weighted down with chains in the frigid waters of the atlantic. That is how depressing that moment was for me. I watched the game with two of my best friends and we sat in silence for a few minutes when the clock finally read 00:00. Then I had to get up and leave. I didn't want to be around another human being. I got in my truck and drove, fighting the intense desire to stop, park by the side of the road, run a hose from my tailpipe into the passenger side window, and put on REMs "Everybody Hurts", and just listen in silence until I was no more.
Sometime in the future, this probably won't hurt so badly. Sometime. Right now I have an overwhelming combination of anger, frustratation and sadness inside of me. I know, that on the surface, many people who are not passionate about sports would say that I am being irrational, that what those players did in Arizona has no real impact on my life...but it does. In all my years as a sports fan I have never experienced such a painful moment. I wonder if this is what my father felt when he saw the ball bounce through Buckner's legs? Is this the kind of moment that will render me a synical, lunatic for the rest of my life, always waiting for the hanging curve, the lost fumble, the atrocious offensive foul? I know that I will never be the same, as a man and as a fan. I know that many of our readers out there are feeling the same way. Some of us feel exactly the opposite, and I admit, I too have experienced such great moments of sheer joy and elation and so I am happy for them as well. If you are waiting for me to break down the game and where we go from here (both Patriots fans and the team themselves), you will have to wait. I am not ready to do this. I imagine, that in a strange way, coming to terms with this NFL season will be much like burying a child...excruciatingly painful, but necessary. I know I will have to move on from this, that I will be able to look back on 2007-2008 fondly, remembering the many great moments that the Patriots provided me...but right now, I can't.
I do want to congratulate the Giants on the win. I cannot, as a fan of sports, devalue what they accomlished on Sunday night. I just don't want to talk about it now. I want to eat ice cream, play racquetball, sleep, occasionally check in on a pornographic website or two...attempt to restore some sort of normalcy to my life. When the time is right I will give this game, this team, and this season its deserved reflection, but for now, I mourn.
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