Please Uncover Your Eyes

The LA Times byline for LA Baseball yesterday read -

"You may now uncover your eyes."

I don't proclaim rocket scientist status, and my ACT and SAT score got me firmly in to a state school, but I do know it's generally impossible to read with your eyes while covering them.

When I embarked on my baseball loving life a decade ago, an embarkment foolishly to win the heart of a college aged boy whom caught my eye, I did so as a fan of the Dodgers. I lived in LA, the stadium was close, and he was a fan. I was 21 and that's what you did in the year 2000 when you know as little about life as you can read covering your eyes.

Two and a half years, three apartments, and ninety five arguments that all amounted to one thing - you're the wrong guy - I left that relationship with one mug, two cats, and a brand new hobby.

I had to decide if I liked this team on it's own merits.

My mom had always been a fan of the pro and con list system.
But what if there are so many pros mom, but there's this one con, I mean that you just have to give more value to.

We moved to a weighted pro and con system.

The numbers added up and by thorough accounting, proper vetting and all intelligent due diligence, it said one thing:
You're a Dodger fan.

I wish any of that was actually true, because I had tried one evening to make it mathematical. But love, love is more complicated than an IRS tax form and rocket science.

I loved them. I loved the Dodgers.

So for all of us who fall below the measure of rocket science status, an attempt at an explanation of love does justice to proving us as feeling, thinking beings, smarter than the proverbial smartest.

I sought in cushion of my mid-20s to prove my independence, and proclaim an identity in individuality.

I was now just a baseball fan, I said, one hand on my hip, brows burrowed, sassy shoulders moving to and fro.

I'd also like to pretend any of that is true, but I bought a cute Cubs hat at Lids in Glendale that I wanted to wear to ball games, and I was in law school, so I came up with an airtight argument should anyone ask.

I'm told life is less about seasons and holidays, and marked more on measure of our growth. We're born needing help, and then fight to "do it myself mommy." We grow in to wearing our Minnie Mouse dress to school everyday because we can, and dismiss judgment, until time we care about peer feedback again.

I'd tell you I care about what other people think about me - if you tell me what day and time you'd like to know.

For years spent exerting identity, comes equal years seeking belonging.

Succeeding at these years depends on what side of the coin you cling to.

So 30 years of life, 10 years of a baseball enthusiasm, and one very used up Cubs hat later, I proclaim while reserving all ability to modify at any time in perpetutity,
I'm a Dodger fan.
I'm a Dodger fan more so than a pro and con list,
a pro and con list weighted and given value,
tested over failed relationships,
disappointing season endings,
and a losing start.

But as only a Dodger sportscaster will say, someone with absolutely no objectivity, a home opener is the beginning of your season. And today we won.
So today I uncover my eyes,
forget last week - like you do when you grant forgiveness to those you love,
and say:

It's time for Dodger baseball.