Baseball 2.0: Lessons From An Imagined Romance

May 7, 2012

Dear Linc,

Even though it’s Monday morning, I’m still at home. I’ve let my coworkers know that I’ll be late because I’m waiting for a work-related package that for reasons I can’t disclose, even in a never-to-be-sent, must be sent directly to my home address.

Well, I thought FedEx would take a little bit more time but it turns out their service is as timely as claimed by their reputation. Now, I am a little disappointed that I won’t have a longer chance to stay at home, not because I welcome the excuse to play hooky — OK, why lie? that’s part of it — but because I was about to… are you ready? Yeah, I’m building up the suspense for a reason.

I was actually going to take this extra time to myself to …

… write a short story.

Other than these never-to-be-sents, I haven’t written creatively in a very long time, and I especially haven’t written anything remotely publishable. There’s something else I’m not telling you, Linc — major details of my personal life that are so deeply personal that I can’t quite bring myself to reveal them even in a never-to-be-sent. What I can tell you is that I’ve come to a crossroads and this moment — which is significant perhaps only to me and of little consequence to you, or anyone else — this moment in which something has finally “clicked” and I am motivated to start writing again, well, it is a moment that is but a spark, a speck of starlight, that is nevertheless a guide, harbinger and bearer of the crossroads I’m at. I’m 30 now, Linc. To those who are in their twenties, that is dangerously old. To those who are past 30, I’m still young. Either way, sometimes we have to make our own signs and wonders, and turning 30 seems like a nice round number and a good time to make something important happen even if the directive is self-authored and not a fire from a bush or a spectral figure floating through a window.

I must choose between wanting to write and wanting to lead the life I’m living now, and despite what I’m being told by some, in a dual manner that has been presented to me and that I have welcomed as sound advice, I don’t think there is room in my life for both. I am not saying this out of defeat, but from experience: in the years leading up to now, I’ve learned that I am simply not capable of juggling a routine standard of life with the unique demands made by one that must encompass writing at its richest — even if it means other areas of my life are in poverty. I hesitate to use the word “sacrifice,” because it is above me to say anything that would elevate me. I’m deserving of nothing, Linc, except, maybe, the decision to write.

For now, off to work I go.

Joe

9:46am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLyL2dYqh

(Notes: 3)