As a long-suffering Bears fan, it’s become a semi-tradition to dust off the gem above every September as kick-off nears.
Maybe it’s to try to hype myself up like a haka dance.
Maybe it’s to steel myself.
Maybe it’s so I just don’t check out entirely in order to do something more productive, or at least far less infuriating, than watching yet another Bears season.
I glance at IG stories with a hint of envy. There’s my homie on top of a Malibu hiking trail overlooking the Pacific. There’s my other friend training for a marathon and MMA. Another smoking a blunt at a BBQ. There’s that chick sipping mimosas poolside.
And here I am in my mancave, screaming at the pirated, pixelated Bears, venting online to some internet Fight Club support group.
And yet I keep doing it. Season after season, year after year.
My step-dad, a hard working earnest man, always asks me with a shit-eating grin, “You ready for a new season?” It comes complete with a mixture of pity and admiration. Then it just trails off in his drawl, “I dunno how you do it” and he’s off to work on his 57 Studebaker.
Honestly, I never used to think about it. It just became habit – like being stuck in a bad marriage. Aristotle once observed that most don’t even recognize the best time of their lives until much later and the same can apply to the worst times.
