To An Athlete Retiring Young

I was surprised at how emotional Andrew Luck’s retirement made me. I’m more interested in the NBA these days. I think there are several…

I was surprised at how emotional Andrew Luck’s retirement made me. I’m more interested in the NBA these days. I think there are several reasons for this.

For one, I share a first name, birth year and current home city with him. I got rejected from Stanford. He played QB there. I worked at Goose the Market, he’s a customer there sometimes.

To say nothing of his personality and facial hair. grooming habits. How I could I do anything but love that dork with the bad beard? If I rejected him, I’d be rejecting me. Besides, not like I’m lacking in self-hatred, or at least the kind that masquerades itself as self-deprecation.

So desperate to form meaningful connections, we impose shape or form on chaos. Our brains are wired for that. That’s why we see a face when we look at the socket we’ve considered jamming a fork in during a bout of suicidal ideation.

And that’s why I felt more invested in a team whose success would have no meaningful impact on life beyond the release of serotonin.

Sports are dumb. I am very dumb.

And secondly, I see parallels with his career and life plans changing. I never have and never will reach his level of success or fame. I wouldn’t really want that for myself.

All that aside it’s hard not to look at his career and take note of how he was failed by those he need to defer to, like former GM Ryan Grigson.

Would he have undergone the same bodily punishment with a more competent decision maker?

There are a lot of what-ifs to consider. Some will see it as a disappointment that he never won MVP or went to the Super Bowl.

But ultimately he has his health and was able to choose his moment instead of being forced. And it’s not like the Colts wouldn’t have tossed him on the scrap heap the second he couldn’t play.

Obviously he’ll be fine, he’s a wealthy and educated man. He’s afforded something a lot of people his age or younger aren’t afforded. A say in their fate.

The ones who aren’t as fortunate as him must come to grips with the fact that their life will not be what they were promised. No life goes completely according to plan, but it should be criminal that small dreams like home ownership, a family and decent wage aren’t in the cards.

I wonder if this is the point where my life is in a freefall I can’t recover from. I can’t really envision a future. Just overstaying my welcome like a sitcom that should have ended five years and 20 special episodes ago.

It’s frustrating to do award-winning work and then struggle to find work in my field. What more do I have to do to get my foot in the door? I know a lot of that is the state of news industry and not going to the right schools and making the right connections.

I also comfort myself by telling myself my politics impact my appeal as a job candidate. I. can look to Noam Chomsky for an excuse.

This is when he was asked a media bias related question. “I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believe something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting,” Chomsky said.

Thirdly, I can also relate to having priorities change after a traumatic event. For him it was the cycle of injury and rehab and worry about if he’d ever play again and being under a microscope for the duration.

For me, it was the murder of my mother. Not much fun making the news instead of writing about it. Less things feel worth caring about because nothing could make my life seem worse or more meaningless.

It’s freeing in a way when you don’t really fear death or anyone or anything ecause nothing could possibly be worse than your current reality and how you feel.

It’s PTSD episodes can be frustrating and you never know what will trigger them.

I can’t speak for Luck’s situation, if he has it or not. It’s not really my place to do so. But it wouldn’t surprise me if there are some memories he doesn’t care to dwell on.

It’s been very frustrating to see people call a guy who took that many hits, who played through so many injuries is absolutely ridiculous.

Football is a dangerous game and it can really destroy your post-retirement life with all the wear and tear it places on the body.

While the timing was not ideal for the team, it’s something he clearly grappled with for a while and was a very difficult decisions.

It’s unfortunate that Irsay leaked the news before Luck was able to tell his teammates or allowed to make the announcement at a time of his own choosing.

Sometimes you just don’t know what your last day at a job will be like.

And finally I think what really upset me is that his retirement represents another big change in a year full of them. I feel like I have to cling on to parts of my old life otherwise it’s like if never happened and I’m a different person entirely.

Some stability would be nice. I’m not sure how much more change I can handle.

I’ve had several near-misses with him. Once was in the same bar as him during the World Cup. I wanted to meet him, shake his hand and pose for a photo. But I decided to leave him alone.

I don’t know if he lives there still, but at one point he lived in a penthouse right next to my mom’s old law firm. Her coworkers saw him, she never did.

He came in to Goose once on a day I worked, but it was after my shift, but had I worked the evening, I would have served him. Instead, I went to a Myles Turner signing.

Not the first time I saw a Pacer instead of him. I opted to go to a Pacers/Pelicans game instead of that Colts/Chiefs game where he led that comeback.

In my defense, Pacers were title favorites. Aw well, another sad what-if to contemplate another time.