Superbowl Monday

Originally posted on February 7, 2015, by cruisingrunner

I love competition, and that love has always partly manifested itself in a love for sport. Seriously, I used to be a huge sports fan. Especially baseball (Go Dodgers!) but also American football and, more recently, ice hockey. Inevitably, though, my interest started waning in the months after leaving home, mostly because of lack of access. Life without TV and internet makes it hard even to follow standings let alone watch any games. So, I moved on. My interests shifted to other things out of necessity.

Last year we watched the NFC Championship when we were in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, mostly because we had family in town and their team was in the game. But we skipped the Superbowl without even thinking about it. And then we watched some of the Stanley Cup finals in Moorea, mostly because The Kings were in it and Andrew, our older son, was visiting. That’s about the extent of our sports viewing in the two years since we left home. Until last Monday. Superbowl Monday. Since we are in New Zealand and on the other side of the date line, the Superbowl was on a Monday. And clearly there wasn’t all the hype here like there would be at home, but there was a tavern that would be showing the game, and a few of our American friends were planning to go. When I heard about it, I was disinterested. “Who’s even in the game?” I had to ask. Maybe I would drop Tim off if he wanted to go, but I couldn’t see wasting a whole afternoon on something I was totally unplugged from now.

But on the day of the game, we were in Paihia taking passport photos to send to immigration to extend our visitor visas. The tavern was on the way back, and it was lunch time after all, so we figured we’d stop and eat, watch a little of the game, socialize with all of the Americans, and then bail. That’s not how it happened.

I LOVED watching the game. I didn’t care who won, but it was a great contest with lots of momentum shifts and spectacular plays. I couldn’t pull myself away. It was so much fun. We stayed for the whole game.

Afterwards I started thinking about how I had never realized how much I missed watching sports. Yes, my interests shifted out of necessity, but I never felt any inkling of regret. In fact, I never really even acknowledged to anyone, including myself, that there was something I had given up. It was like the interest just naturally slipped away. And this phenomenon applied to more than just sports. Which is a good thing, because if I had dwelt on everything I was giving up when we left home, I would probably have missed out on everything we were gaining.