What am I supposed to do now?
Photo courtesy of Jeff Alipit
A week ago, my son played his last competitive high school basketball game. I thought I was ready for basketball to end, but I’m not. I had been anticipating this night for years. There is something intoxicating about the energy of a packed gym, the way he celebrates when he hits a three-pointer, the taunting cheers of the opposing fans, the beauty of teammates working together in a state of flow. How do you come down from this?
I asked a family friend the same question. He played collegiate baseball and assured me that it is not easy.
Heading into the last game, Sam seemed OK. He had decided not to pursue basketball at the college level; he was at peace with his decision to attend our state university where he would play intramurals with his former high school teammates. The season was long. He was tired. The ankle he rolled in December still bothered him. He said he is ready to learn new things.
Other than the final score, the last game was perfect. Fans from both teams filled the stands. Each of the senior players was honored before tip-off. Although we were the underdog, we led for most of the game.
In the last minute, Sam fouled out. As the announcer congratulated him on his career, his coach hugged him. My boy cried. He is 18 and 6’2, but at that moment I could see the little boy in him. My friend put her arm around me as we watched the clock run out, our sons passing the ball to the sophomores taking the court. Just like my sophomore had done two long, arduous, lightning-fast years ago.
Later that night, after one last team meeting and dinner at their preferred pizza joint, Sam texted me from his room:
“What am I supposed to do now?”
The pain and earnestness of that question hit me. “Sweet boy. Feel the feelings.”
“I don’t want to. There’s too many.”
He listed his regrets:
“Why did I say I didn’t like it?”
“Why didn’t I go to the gym more?”
“Why did I ever take my focus away from basketball?”
“I just want to play.”
When I reminded him that he could, he responded, “It’s never gonna be the same.”
He’s right. That was a really special experience.
I think about how basketball has changed Sam. It’s taught him to work, to win, to lose, to accept consequences, to be coachable, and to lead others; it’s given him a sense of love and belonging.
I think about how basketball has changed me.
It’s given me friendships, a knowledge of the game (my family jokes about how I help the refs out when they miss a travel call), and a deeper understanding of the importance of athletics for kids—my own and the students I work with.
In the days after the game—amid texting my fellow sports moms, spontaneously crying, and looking at the photos—I recalled the book Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy. He describes the phenomenon of reentry, the difficulty that artists and those who appreciate art experience after participating in something big and beautiful and important. What do people do after a moment of transcendence?
“[W]hat is not generally recognized is that the successful launch of self into orbit of transcendence is necessarily attended by problems of reentry,” Percy writes. “What goes up must come down. The best film of the year ends at nine o’clock. What to do at ten? What did Faulkner do after writing the last sentence of Light in August? Get drunk for a week. What did Dostoevsky do after finishing The Idiot? Spend three days and nights at the roulette table. What does the reader do after finishing either book? How long does his exaltation last?”
Words like “transcendence” and “exaltation” might be a stretch for a high school basketball team from a town in Colorado. But the end of this season feels big and important to Sam and me, and reentry is hard. And there are more of these moments ahead. Graduation. Moving into the dorms. We are both sure to be asking, “What am I supposed to do now?” again and again. Sam’s right: there are too many feelings to feel—including grief and loss. But they’re not all bad. Yesterday, he posted his favorite photos from the season to his Instagram, with, of course, emojis in lieu of words: Peace. Love. Basketball.