When I left Kansas City, I had four different writing projects in mind, three of which themed on women’s sports. The one that didn’t was my memoir, freshly inspired by an essay format based on values I currently, in this present day and age, hold true.
Putting the world of sports back on my mental and emotional plate was a mistake, though, and Memphis was the metaphor that reminded me just how blue those days felt. It lit the wrong kind of fire inside, reigniting a deep sadness for how small and unkind, unjust even, the spirit of capitalism-disguised competition is. I began to look at the world with a furrowed brow, and of course, everything in my everyday since then became irritating, intolerable, and a fight to pick. Don’t you see?!
I was losing my cool. The last time my nervous system was this dysregulated was when I was playing basketball and then when I was writing about playing in my MFA program – a good 15 years of my life. That fire is a fight response and girl, does it blaze. This is how to self-destruct.
Luckily, yesterday, I caught myself, the way one catches a lie – when you start saying things you regret to people you love. This is not who I am, I thought. This is who I was.
Fighting is one way to struggle, and I have zero interest in giving my time and energy to sadness and anger because it disrupts my peace, my quiet, my joy and creativity. It brings me down, these low vibes, the causes of which I resist dearly with critical thinking and a sharp tongue. The world is too big to be living so small.
Memphis is a place where the past lives, and if you’re not careful, it will make you believe it is still very much the present.
Inspired Scribble 