Close your eyes for a second. Deep breaths.
Inhale. Slow exhale. Inhale. Slow exhale.
Whoa. What a week that was. And what a long, long road we have ahead.
Maybe you were an everyday sports fan when this week began, your fists gripping tightly to the way we've always known things. Then real life began crashing ashore in such unprecedented fashion with a such a strong undertow.
The coronavirus was spreading from coast to coast, a global pandemic shaking everything.
So maybe you're still trying to grasp what to do with all of this, how to behave, how to navigate this sports-less world with so many things we used to care about deeply now seeming so trivial.
Even with the daily realization that your health and family require most of your attention, allow yourself a grieving process with the sudden disappearance of sports. It's only natural.
You have no spring training to keep tabs on, no stretch run in the NBA or NHL.
And, geez, no NCAA Tournament either?
Man, what you would have given Thursday and Friday to have that annual adrenaline surge kick in, to feel instantly invigorated by Greg Gumbel's voice, to be invested more than you ever should in some upstart from the Patriot League challenging mighty Kansas.
The road to the Final Four is always exciting, always captivating, always so perfectly suspenseful and fast-moving.
But this year the bracket chatter on social media revolves mostly around movie dogs and Halloween candy and quarantine activities. ("Not showering" in a blowout over "Eating pasta" in Round 1.)
And that's simply the silly stuff, those much-needed, lighthearted diversions to temporarily take our minds off this evolving crisis.
Honestly, we're all coming to grips with this new form of "survive and advance," trying to press forward one hour at a time, one day, one week. We all need that March Madness mindset to remind us that looking too far ahead is impractical, sometimes dangerous.
How jarring it has become to see grocery-store shelves so bare. How frightening it is to hear the nightmare coronavirus stories from Italy and Spain and France.
And now Seattle? And Southern California?
How amazing it is to wake up with full energy, working lungs and a healthy family. You remind yourself never to take that for granted.
