i wish i was a little bit taller

Have you ever waited for the bus in the pouring rain? 30 minutes pass, then 45 and still no bus. And as you're drenching wet you realize that the longer you're waiting for bus the more likely it is when it does come that you'll be standing up near the rear exit. Squashed between a pimply teenager singing along to every word of the music pounding out of her headphones and a senior citizen who can never quite get comfortable and continually slaps your leg with his walker. However, just as you've lost all hope and your resigned to walking and risking pnuemonia, your bus comes around the corner, followed by another and another. Three buses in succession, and you can hop aboard any of the three and have your choice of seat.Well, being unemployed is a lot like that, and even more so when your an unemployed basketball player. Because not only are you waiting hopelessly for a bus that may never come, but your waiting for a bus to an unknown destination. Bags are constantly packed and papers arranged so you can hop on the first flight when your agent finally calls. In your early twenties, this is adventerous and even sexy but as you get older it starts to lose it's appeal. The distance and uncertainty start to take its toll, your family calls less and your friends slowly get more and more distant. Buying clothes hangers, a poster for the wall and even having a girlfriend become luxuries too costly when you're waiting by the phone.

I waited patiently unemployed for 4 months in London (absolutely chillin'!) then got a call from a team in Cyprus, I bypassed it to go to Newcastle, spent a week and half there then a call from a team in Spain, and here I am. Just like that, three buses all going different places, all with an empty seat for a 5'11" point guard. 

So why do I do it? This isn't the NBA, no flashing lights, million dollar contracts or groupies (although granted the ugliest basketball player will still fair better than an average joe). The easy answer is for the passion or 'love of the game', but that's not it. The love has gone long ago, basketball is now a job, it's a wife you've lived with for so long you don't know any different. The times of heartache and stress she's given you has deflated what once was passionate and filled with love. 

There this feeling you get every so often, or maybe its just a momentary sensation from playing sports and even more so when it's professional and there is so much at stake. I'm not sure there is a word for it, at least not in this language. No matter how bad it is, or how hard a season is, when you're able to stare defeat in the face and reach to a dark place inside and snatch victory away, you get this amazing feeling unlike anything else. Its not life changing and isn't as dramatic as they make it out to be during those cheesy slow-motion promos during the olympics but its addictive. It becomes a drug we need to function, and the more you're exposed to it, the more you have to have it.

So here I am, nearing my thirties with a work CV so small you could write it on a post-it and I'm still chasing that one last high. Knowing I'll just need another one after I'm done and knowing basketball will spit me out when its my time to go.

But I do it anyway, I'll sit in the front row and ride this bus through my spanish season, then hope off and wait again in the pouring rain hoping another will be around the corner.