Night Games

A good night's sleep is predicated on the body actually being ready to sleep.

Therefore, a belly full of caffeine probably isn't the wisest choice to speed this condition along. So true, even a caveman understands. So why don’t I?  No longer considered a Cro-Magnon of our species, why on earth would I consume three full glasses of ice tea with a later than usual dinner the other night and expect the Sandman to quickly come-a-calling? I don’t know. But I sure as hell couldn’t sleep. And after counting about ten thousand sheep- and their offspring- I eventually gave up.

So, as the lovely Amy slumbered on peacefully, I tip-toed to the living room, my place of refuge whenever a long restless night awaits me. I tried to find something on TV, an Infomercial, a bad movie, anything to lull me into dozing. But that didn't work.

Next I tried reading. That didn’t work either. Concentrating on the story made me even more awake so after a couple of chapters I gave up, too.

I laid my head on the sofa and demanded my brain shut down and go into sleep mode. But on this night, making unrealistic demands on my central nervous system was like asking Lake Tahoe to move a little to the left so all of it would be in California. It just wasn't going to happen.

The house was church-like quiet, the neighborhood fast asleep and as the cold moonless night crept along, I tossed and turned on the couch waiting for unconsciousness to come. Silently cursing the makers of ice tea, I glanced at the clock-- 12:55 am- and with hours to go till dawn, I felt like the only person in the world still awake. I also felt very alone.

During this time, although in quiet solitude, my mind became very active. It’s amazing the things that run through your head in the middle of the night when all you want to do is find sleep. The demons and dragons all seem to come out of the woodwork.

Every mistake ever made comes back magnified a gazillion times.

Every dream that hasn't come true, all the things I wish I'd done but haven't.

All the things I did do but wish I hadn't; or at least done them differently.

They were all there to punctuate the futility of my existence so far: hop-scotching though life, blindly doing it my own way, without a plan and without much of a clue. And I couldn't shut it off.  Whatever had been in that ice tea, a stream of unsettled consciousness was spilling over the dark hours of a Wednesday morning, running amok and roughshod though my head.

I thought I was alone, too. But in the dark, Satan's presence crept beside me and began whispering glad tidings in my ear.

You're still the biggest loser to ever draw breath.

 You're a failure.

 You've done stupid things.

You're going to lose your job.

You're incompetent.

Nobody likes you. 

God hates you.

Give up.

Pretty crazy, I know. But at 1:30 in the morning, I couldn't find the will or energy to punch holes in his lies.

I really haven't lived with much intelligence or morality.

I'm not the sharpest scalpel in the operating room.

I have friends, but the jury's still out whether I'm a good friend in return.

And I really don't think I've lived up to expectations either; my own or anyone else's. Squeezing the bare minimum out of what God has chosen to bless me with, all I've got to defend my life with so far are a bunch of squandered years, stumbling around and generally lost.

Yet I never thought I’d get to this place. I did have goals and direction. I was going to be the best center fielder in Oakland A’s history. Or a revered and respected teacher of youth. Or the best d.j. ever heard, bar none. Or maybe even the successful owner of my own radio station. I’d be a loved and generous boss, a pillar in my community and, along the way, accumulate three cars, two houses and two kids--or maybe three kids and two cars. Whatever. But it kind of sucks getting this far, living this long, and realizing none of that ever happened or ever will, and my best years are probably behind me. 

Good morning!

So what did happen?

Let’s see...I was a lousy baseball player; the inability to hit a curve dooming any hope of setting foot on a real baseball diamond.

I let my teaching aspirations get derailed and eventually dead-ended.

I messed up with people, chemicals and alcohol and now I can’t go back and fix things or make them right- with past acquaintances, or my body. And though I did have some time in the sun during my on-air radio career, I eventually took it for granted and eventually lost it. Now I’m toiling anonymously in the bowels of a benevolent broadcasting behemoth, but hardly in a position I ever thought I’d  end up; and certainly not one I’d ever be envious of. Frankly, my heart's often not completely in it, and some days I feel I'm not even pulling my own weight. I never thought I'd feel so useless and so irrelevant. Damn!

I call myself a Christian, yet in moments of despair like this, sometimes it feels like I've lost my soul, lost my way, God. And that I’m never going to find Him again. As a Christians, I guess this makes me consistently inconsistent. However, as the clock struck 3, it’s the stuff that keeps me up at night. That and imminent death.

Someday soon I'm going to be gone;  like, not here, as in dead, buried, dust, ka-put, no more and no mas. Oh well. It's just the way it is. But my personal mortality is always a subject for much late night mulling over. And its not that I'm not afraid to die. I'm just afraid of the process. So if I have to go, I want to croak in my sleep at home, exiting quickly, quietly, and without a lot of fuss. I don't want stick around with a lot of tubes stuck in me, lingering around for weeks or months in a hospital with the only signs of life an active heart monitor. Like they say, "How can we miss you if you won't go?"

So I pray I don't overstay my welcome and when it’s time to go, I just go.

When the end comes, I hope it’s not drawn out, like the night was doing at 4:00.....4:01….4:02...

Then staring out the front window at the stars in the black backdrop, I began to re-think things.

Maybe my life has played out like just about everybody else's so far. Lots of mistakes, starts and stops. Times when the plot's read like real bad fiction in a dime store paperback. Yet there've been other times when it’s been the fun and fluffy stuff of fairy tales. I’ve been to the edge of ecstasy and to the far depths of despair.

But haven't most people? Haven't they too felt like life's a bad dream they couldn't wake up from? And other times like a fantasy they hoped would never end? Of course they have, because we all share one thing in common. We're all merely human. 

So at 4:45, I decided my life doesn’t suck as much as I think it has. Oh make no mistake; if I never sin another day, I've already messed up enough for a whole lifetime. A whole couple of lifetimes. Regardless, God comes along often enough and when I most need Him- like this night- to focus me back on the truth: I'm loved, and forgiven. For the past, for yesterday and today. Yeah, I'm weak and have a tendency to get lost in clouds of confusion and uncertainty. But eventually the sky's gonna clear.

 

And it's true- I'm in a struggle that isn't going to end until I take my last breath and I'm going to lose more battles along the way. But Lord willing, I'm not going to lose the war. I have to hold on to that. With all the lies I tell myself, it's really the only truth that’s left to grab on to.

 

It’s just that I’m so tired. 

I just want these burdens and this stuff to go away. But maybe I don't deserve to be at peace. Maybe these long nights of anguish are my penance, or the Biblical thorn in the side to remind me how desperately I'll always need God.

 

Or maybe there’s just some mistakes in life you never stop paying for...

I finally dropped off about 5 a.m. and woke up an hour later when I heard Amy in the shower. But I felt like I'd played a baseball double header in the afternoon and a hockey game in the evening, all on the same day. I was exhausted; not just from the lack of sleep but from all the stuff that'd run through my head over the long empty pre-dawn hours. Pretty crazy what goes through your mind when it’s just you and the darkness. But I was glad to be awake and away from beating myself up over my life, its mistakes and all of the over self-analyzing that tends to take place while whiling away a long night of sleeplessness.


However, when I got to work, I dug back in my in-box and found this blurb from an email trade magazine blast I get every week. This particular article came a couple years ago, but I've hung on to it because the message is so clear and applicable- at least to me. I keep kicking myself over past sins, failures and mistakes- especially in the middle of the night- and it’s all so freaking counter- productive. The writer's name is Tim Moore and though he's speaking about business mistakes, he just as easily could be taking dead-aim at our every day personal lives-at least mine. And especially after a night like I'd just gone through, it offered me another little ounce of encouragement to start my day—and who can't use a little extra encouragement?

The flickering lamp of history gropes along the trail of our past, trying to reconstruct its decisions, to revive its echoes and to retrieve our irretrievable youth. The light shines on the "what-ifs" and "should-have-beens" that linger from decisions made: opportunities seized and those forsaken. What good does this do since our best intentions clouded with indecision are no match for the Fates or life's ironies? The perspective of time has lengthened, and yesterdays are always seen in a different setting.

Timing is the essence of life: in crisis, in decision-making, in triumph and tragedy. If we could only turn back the clock and take back a few seconds here or a few minutes there, what difference might there be?  In reality, we’ll probably never know. And self-recrimination based on our belief that "we blew it" through a bad decision is like blaming the gravitational pull of the Moon. Retracing footsteps back down the slope to rethink or to regret, is a colossal waste of our time and emotion.

What really matters is that we made a decision: a job, a move, a friend, a marriage. We figure our odds, calculate the risks, project the implications good and bad, then weigh anchor and shove off…

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So if you're spending time in the small hours, agonizing over a plan gone wrong or an opportunity missed along the way, let yourself off the hook. You can't turn back the clock, but you can wind it back up again when the right wave rolls toward you. There's no such thing as "the last great chance," and recognizing which to engage and which to let pass by, can make all the difference.

 

That morning as I began work, I really needed to read Tim Moore's piece again. In four paragraphs it put my long miserable night into a much more manageable context before facing the day. It's true I can't go back and re-write history. But as a believer, it’s also true that my past is forgiven. 

I've had a career, too, a good one, with many years of growth and success. 

I've been loved and am loved; had good days with more ahead still possible. 

I've had an okay life so far, and it ain't over till it’s over. All good stuff.

 

But why does it always take till the light of day to make me see it all? I don't know. But from now on, if I'm eating supper after 8 p.m. I'm going to pass on the ice tea