Relative Something

It’s not as if anything is guaranteed to turn out the way I expect. I’ve been exercising my opportunity to explore being idle lately between sessions of walking Asher and tending to the horses. No agenda. No goals. Occasional spontaneous naps. A few streaming series, a random movie here and there, a lot of listening to music, watching suggested YouTube videos, and meandering down the rabbit hole of Reddit comments on news or popular posts.

There are plenty of ways to visit worlds completely foreign to my reality. Did you know there are still people who discuss everything that a certain defendant-in-chief says or does? It’s weird how stark the difference is between reading news from other places compared to standing out among our four horses.

Yesterday was the “final four” day for NFL playoffs. This morning there are fans for two of the teams who couldn’t be happier and fans of the other two teams coping with a heaping serving of dashed hopes. I feel their pain.

On the subject of spectator sports, last week, Major League Baseball announced the 2024 Hall of Fame election results. This has provided a stark reference for the passing of time in my life. Twin Cities hometown superstar, Joe Mauer was voted in on the first year he made the ballot. He was born about a year and a half after Cyndie and I got married.

A couple of blinks later, Joe was winning batting titles, Golden Glove awards, MVP awards, and All-Star appearances, all while playing for one team: his home state Minnesota Twins. The next thing I know, he has retired from playing baseball. Now he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. His entire career seems like just a blip of time to me.

As a kid who grew up with a sports fan dad, I looked up to athletes and their impressive accomplishments as permanent fixtures. Then one day I noticed the lauded draftees and excelling rookies making headlines were younger than me. At least Hall of Famers were still older.

Not anymore.

Time sure flies when you are having fun.

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