Larry, this one's for you

Readers ... gentle, loving, supportive Readers,

This post is a belated birthday gift to Larry. Once, a long long time ago, we were young and there was a ball team. And once, at a game, the score was close, and we were in the last inning, and I cheered in the stands and then joined in the collective groan and cry of disappointment when Larry dropped the ball in the outfield, and we lost the game. I sure hope he remembers that day - if he doesn't, I hope he keeps reading this until we get to the point. That was the day Larry taught me a lesson. (Only I didn't realize it until just now.)

After the game, Dan and Larry and I - we went to the Original Taco House. I have no idea why we didn't join everyone else at Burgerville, which was a more usual post-game activity. I also do not remember why it was just the three of us. But I do remember - really really clearly - that Larry was pretty much a walking, barely breathing human version of the word Dejected. He was barely speaking. We thumped him on the back. We walked with arms across his shoulders. We agonized with him. We felt his feelings. We went for tacos.

After some period of cheerful banter between me and Dan, supportively ignoring the Dejected One with us in the booth, after the chips and salsa, once the food came, hard hearted wench that I was, I said (cheerfully - with no compunction or remorse of any kind), "Okay Larry, that's enough. Crap happens. You made a mistake. But you're one of the best players on the team and you know it. So snap out of it and eat."

Dan flinched and looked at me like I'd just recommended that our dejected friend rid himself of unremitting hiccups by means of harikari and said something like, "easy! Give him a minute, why don't you?" To sad and sympathetic Dan, I think I just made a face. To Dejected Man I repeated what I had just said. I don't think he liked me very much at that moment. ... But he stopped moaning and started eating. He let himself be okay.

Thanks, Larry.

Yesterday I lost the game here by dropping the ball. When you did that, you spent some healthy time being Dejected Man ... and then you snapped out of it and ate your damn tacos. Yesterday my failure was filling up all the emotional air in the house, and that too was a failure. Today I've tried about ten times so far to write Dejected Girl out of my brain and body, and she refused to go away. She's a pouter. She sulks. She's very likely to say horrid things to her husband like, "Easy for you to say," and "You have no idea what I'm talking about." (It isn't easy for him to say, he's really really sick of hearing about it, and he knows exactly what I'm talking about. Over and over again, he knows exactly what I'm talking about. ...sigh ... Sorry, honey.)

Now, suddenly, I can just see her. Your blog about friends from your olden days and Carol putting a comment on there ... and it all came back to me. I can just see that uppity Snap Out Of It Girl sitting in that booth in the Taco House, and she's just as uncompromising as ever, the little chit. She's demanding the same thing of me now that she did of you back then. She still says, You blew it. So? You usually do okay and you know it. So get over yourself. Eat your tacos.

She's right. (I don't like her very much. Why didn't you throw something at her?) Pass the salsa.

Postscript: Larry says he doesn't remember this -- but I bet Dan does! And I do. It's not because I have a great memory of the mistakes of other people either. It's because we loved him and he was in pain. That's what has been coming back to me - how very much we all loved each other. It's the memory of love that snapped me out of my funk. So ... NOW will you please just pass the salsa?