Slightly Off the Grid

Competitive sport stresses me out.

The Ravens, in particular, stress me out.

When the Ravens play well and take a commanding lead in a game, I enjoy watching them. I appreciate well-executed plays, although it requires all my concentration to follow the ball, even on a big screen TV. I enjoy watching another team get trounced. I can sit back and enjoy the win.

When Justin Tucker comes out to kick, I relax in knowing another three points are ours. When he is kicking from forty-eight yards out, I sit on the edge of my seat, expectant but not surprised when the ball soars through the goalposts.

More often, though, I am in agony as the last ten minutes of the game decide whether we win or lose. To lose a lead kills me. To scratch and claw to a win ties me in knots. Well, to be honest, more often than not, I have slept through all but the last ten minutes of the game, but when all the drama is in the last ten minutes, I feel I haven’t missed anything but two hours of stress.

The AFC Championship game, which I watched in its entirely, was torture. Granted, I thoroughly enjoyed when Lamar caught his own pass. That was the kind of move I would make—purely accidental. However, to wait the entire game for the team to kick in to gear (they’ve done it so many times before) only to watch Taylor Swift celebrating the Kansas City victory in Ravens’ stadium—that was painful.

I had even gone to the Ravens store and bought myself a game shirt: “In Tucker We Trust.” So much for team spirit (although Tucker did kick us four of our ten points). Next time, I’ll go shopping with my sister-in-law. She was forbidden to watch the game because she brings bad luck. Or so says my brother. It probably was to console her for taking a client instead of her to attend the game in the company box. We still lost.

The game distressed me so much that afterwards, to console myself, I binge-watched four episodes of Miss Scarlet and the Duke on Masterpiece Theatre. I might have watched more but my body, having gone from full stress to near coma, was screaming at me to move. So I moved myself upstairs to bed.

So what would I rather watch?

Ice skating. As a child, I enjoyed skating on my grandmother’s pond with my siblings and cousins. The surface was often lumpy and bumpy, a far cry from the pristine indoor skating rink where I occasionally took my children. I associate ice-skating with joy and hot chocolate and my grandmother’s kitchen chairs, which she let newbie skaters drag out to the pond to use for support.

When I watch competitive skaters, I admire their skill and grace while remembering my own wobbly ankles and numb toes. If they fall, I feel the cold, hard ice and the determination to get back up and keep skating. But, even though only one skater is judged to be the best, no one is a loser. Each skater is lovely. Each skater connects to something beautiful in me.

Justin Tucker is like a competitive skater on an ice hockey team. The team crashes and bangs and scores and bleeds. Justin comes out with precision and grace and just does his thing. Perfectly. Well, 90% perfectly. More perfectly than anyone else. Justin is, for me, the least stressful part of a Ravens game.

That’s why I broke down and bought a Tucker shirt which will now hang in my closet until next season unless I wear it to a Super Bowl party which I will actually enjoy because I don’t care who wins and I won’t have to pay attention to the game.

No stress. No pain. Screaming optional.