Baseball

Baseball is just a game. It's strange how a game can have so much meaning for a person...or a family...or a community...a city...a nation. The game has a power that draws people in so much that they love it whether the game loves them back or not. People give the game all that they have. They pray for it. They defend it. They cry, they laugh, and they rage about even the smallest detail of it. To some, it means everything. I am one of those.

Baseball is my grandpa at the age of 72 hitting fly balls to my cousin and I as kids on a hot, Texas, summer afternoon. It's fighting back tears at the end of the season in little league where I learned to accept loss. It's avoiding sports radio or TV after a heartbreaking loss. It's playing catch with my dad outside after he got back from work. It's my grandma's stories of heckling and flirting with Pete Reiser, Duke Snyder, and Dixie Walker at Ebbet's Field. It's pretending to be Nolan Ryan while pitching. It's socks rolled up into balls and bases made of furniture in games played with my brother and sister. Baseball is what stopped my classmates from making fun of me at school. It's the "temple" that I go visit when I want to be alone. It's lining up buckets and mattresses at the barn, to throw at 200ft away to practice long-toss. It's hating the New York Yankees. It's habits and superstitions. It's sleepless nights caused by missed opportunities. Baseball is stick-bats, stone-balls, and candy-wrapper bases on the playground. It's long socks and a new cap and belt. 

It's scars from diving for catches. It's the smell of a field of cut grass and the leather of a glove. It's Eric Nadel's voice at night in my dad's truck. It's 3 hours that bore most people but have me on the edge of my seat. It's Michael Young. It's batting cages for hours with my teammates. It's the reason my family had lawn chairs (so they could watch me and my brother play). It's a brotherhood of friends that I made in any American city that I have lived in. It's disappointment. It's coaches telling me that I have the "green light". It's player's cards and plastic cups from the ballpark.  It's girlfriends never understanding why I would breakout of my stoic nature for a game. It's watching Neftali Feliz strike out Alex Rodriguez to go to the Texas Rangers' first World Series. It's spending two years with shovels in our front pasture building a ball field. It's a game I've played every year of my life since I was 5. It's not blaming the umpire because there were countless other chances to succeed on my own. Baseball is my first love, and I will never be unfaithful to her.

What are you saying?

It can be a psychological trap. You get these feelings of being overwhelmed with caring for people and investing in their lives and well-being. I think it could be dangerous. I know that some of the refugees kill themselves because they can't bear the feeling of failure, and I'm not worried about "offing" myself, but I can't help but fear the idea of failing another person...especially people who have been through so much. 

There's got to be some sort of balance. It could be harmful to my personal and professional life, and I'm not sure I've figured out how to juggle it. Is it so easy to leave my personal life at home and yet go to work and try to help people in their own personal lives? My reference is my own life...and I can't help but see through my own eyes. Does it wear on my relationships? My personal health? My job? My psyche and way of thinking? Too much thinking.

The work is so high stress; it's rewarding, but the fact that you are so involved in the well-being and future of people's lives sometimes...cripes it's hard. It demands the best that one can give because some of these people have literally been through hell on earth, and now they look to you for not just help but HOPE. You aren't supposed to think of failing them, but it's there in your mind, and you realize that you are creating a feeling of self-worth in another human being. This is a beautiful thing.

Compartmentalize, Ryan. Smile. Leave as much in your personal life at home. I can do this sometimes, but like I wrote, it's difficult to do work compassionately when you are trying to "turn off" your emotions. It's a job. It's not just a job. The client-employee relationship is tricky. 

I feel like the people I try to help see me in too bright of a way...like some sort of beacon of hope and opportunity. I suppose I am supposed to be, but it creates pressure. I care a lot about those I try to help; it's hard not to when they look at me that way. I must find a way, but it's unfortunate that you have to segment someone's life for a spot of time. They need you, and you give them an hour of your time and move onto paperwork and dealing with other people. Did I do enough? Will things work out for them? What's a reasonable amount of help I can give?

Can I talk to my co-workers? I don't feel confident enough to. I'm new. They're seasoned. 90% of my co-workers are former refugees themselves. I'm the only white male in my office. How the hell did I get this job? The work is often sad. You're cleaning a mess, fixing a wrong, improving a bad condition...toiling to build something new. It's always uphill, but at least it's for a good. Then again, the world is often sad. That's not my worldview, but when you work all day and see that negativity, it's hard to stay optimistic about everything is going on. All of these people from around the world having gone through such trauma. God help them. God help me never look at the world in such a bleak way. I can see it in some of my older co-workers that have been doing this for years. Some can be so negative and pessimistic. Did the job make them that way? I'll never let it happen to me.

They had a workshop for us where they suggested we relieve stress among other employees by talking about our problems. They told us to rely on others that do similar work. They wanted us to stop and enjoy simple things like tasting our food when we eat, watching the sun rise and set, listening to music, and feel how soft a blanket is. Hmm. Practice being "aware". 

Will these things make my work easier? I doubt it. I have so many nightmares...when I can sleep. It's like I'm awake all night fighting to sleep or fighting a terror in my dreams. It's exhausting and I go to work feeling like I have a hangover. It creates frightening thoughts in my mind throughout the day. Is it work that is doing that or just myself? I believe strongly in Stoicism and finding a strong askesis in myself, but is that the right way to go? Being more emotionally numb? Developing an apatheia? Maybe...only if I can still do a great job with my work. Is that possible while being objective? I have to wrestle the bad down and rise above, but I can't figure out if that's through a reflective philosophy or finding/creating something positive to balance it out.

It's easy to say "don't think so much".