Not About Baseball

I stayed up past my bedtime again last night. I almost made it. I watched a couple of episodes of Ted Lasso and came to a good stopping point where I was satisfied with myself for enjoying some quiet TV time with my favorite show and even though it was after midnight, I was confident I could still get a pretty good night's sleep. 

But no. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to just lay on the living room carpet and put on a movie. I saw the first seven or eight minutes of Goodfellas and then I woke up when the end credits were rolling with Sid Vicious' is cover of My Way.

I brush my teeth and I can see the light of day already shining in through the bathroom window. "It’s almost the longest day of the year," I told myself, to at least rationalize why I'm brushing my teeth and crawling into bed at this hour. I was trying to minimize the mental anguish I regularly put on myself for not just going to bed like I should.

I told Eri that I was thinking about just canceling the baseball game tickets this time and waiting until next year. She was unpleasantly surprised that it was going to cost 50 bucks for the boys and I to go see a Rakuten Eagles game. There are technically cheaper tickets, and of course there are much much more expensive tickets. I just got some outfield seats where the boys could see everything and take in the feeling of a professional baseball game. And of course eat some good stadium food and there are always awesome food trucks outside in the park and often craft beers being sold here in there. 

I’m fully aware that the boys are very unlikely to make it through an actual entire baseball game. They can just barely make it to the end of a soccer match if there’s no extra time. But as usual, I am much more focused on the journey than a destination. More about the process than the outcome. It’s not about going to see a baseball game. That’s just what we will happen to be doing on that day. For me it’s about life. The boys and I go a lot of places. I don’t really have a favorite, even though I just kind of prefer the free places like the traffic park because it’s kinder on the wallet and I think it’s a good message for the boys that it doesn’t always have to cost money to have an amazing time.

Any place we go together is my favorite place.

I wasn’t actually reconsidering the baseball game. I don’t know why I told that to Eri. I think I do things like that sometimes in a feeble effort to express to her that I understand her feelings. But I know I should really just be honest. Maybe even share a little bit of what I’m writing today. I walked down and picked up the tickets at 7-Eleven. Fifty smackeroos. I'm so excited. I don’t even really like baseball that much. 

After the boys fell asleep tonight I stood in their room for a little bit feeling the warm nighttime June breeze whistle by.