Fifteen Minutes

A co-worker came up to me today .... an old basketball playing buddy from years ago who I don't get the chance to talk with much these days.

In the ten to fifteen minutes we talked, we relived a great deal of memories .... mostly stories about old teammates. Some who are also old friends, some not so much, those mostly due to their selfish style of game. 

I've concluded that basketball, more than any other sport or recreational pursuit, is the greatest activity to have twenty-five-plus years of stories wrapped around it.

All the people involved that came and went, stayed briefly or for the long term.

Names and faces long forgotten suddenly brought back to life through stories, myths and memories.

It was the ritualistic gathering of all sorts of souls with one common interest. 

Most abandon it after they leave high school, but we were holdouts.

We went until the acceptance of the reality of time .... and fully (or partially) functioning body parts .... dictated differently.

And most of us probably suffer from the illusion that we could still hoop, because we see it still in our dreams, if only we could remember where and when to show up. 

Record collecting might be a close second. 👴 

Of course, those activities are where I've spent most of my time over the years.

I wonder sometimes how it all ended for each of us.

Looking back at an age 40-something given day .....

I could still play that day ..... and tomorrow and the day after, etc., with no noticeable decline in physical ability or enjoyment.

And it seems like if I could play yesterday, I should be able to play tomorrow and the day after and the day after that into infinity right?

Because we were just talking hours of time and each day is just a few more hours and why can't we just keep on?

So how did the day arrive when it was decided that we had nothing else to give to the game?

(Is this making any sense?) 

With the progression of time in minutes and hours and no sudden identifiable wall to run into along the way, why did it have to end?

And now I think that each passing moment probably held some miniscule and unmeasurable amount of decline and the science and mathematics of it all both saddens and fascinates me. 

As I recall, my tipping point was one evening, walking out to my car and into the winter night, after an evening of hoops, soaked in perspiration and shivering through the drive home. 

That deep chill stayed with me long after.

It wasn't an aching back, a pulled muscle, ten consecutive missed jump shots, or anything like that.

I just didn't want to experience that cold again.  

The next game night came along and I just stayed home ..... and never returned.

For a year or two after, I'd receive encouraging phone calls and messages to come out. 

My response was always: "Maybe next week."

But next week never happened.

Except in dreams that still occasionally materialize and often haunt me.