some days are better than others

Playing basketball at 40, some days are better than others. And probably that’s not even true. It’s not that some days are better than others, but that some days I have brief stretches where I feel that all is right with my game. Not whole days, just brief, fleeting, moments. These moments are fewer and farther between, but they still happen on occasion.

Today I had a few moments on the court where I felt I could do no wrong. The moment passes, but while your in it–at 40–you relish it more than you once did. No one watches; no one cheers anymore. And yet, somehow, I find these moments–at 40–even more satisfying than moments I had in jam packed gyms at 18 or 21.

I keep playing basketball for moments when it all comes together–feathery light on my feet, a step-and-a-half faster than the game, my thrown-together team, the ball, and I as one.

I ride a stationary bike for half an hour every morning right after I get out of bed to make it more likely that moments like these can continue happen. I go to the gym by myself for 45 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday, to see if I can manufacture moments like these. I do more pull-ups, and push-ups, and crunches, and arm curls, and so on and so forth (they call it “P90X”–maybe you’ve seen the infomercial, too) then I’ve ever done in my life, to prepare my body for moments like these.

Is this pathetic?

I don’t care. Live a moment or two like these and you won’t care if anyone thinks its pathetic. Instead, all you’ll know to do is thank God you’re alive and well enough to cherish them.