Rude mood

Yesterday, I found myself in an unusually “short” mood – easily irritated and quick to snap. It felt unnerving because it is an unnatural state; I’m generally an even-keel kind of guy. I was trying to determine the cause of my bizarre irritability. Some theories:

• Lack of sleep. That’s pretty standard at this point.
• Kid on crutches. My son Joey is still suffering the effects of a badly sprained ankle. It’s getting better, slowly, but anytime something bad happens to your own kids, it throws things off.
• Lack of sleep. Oh wait. I mentioned that already.

Not a great list of theories. Lack of sleep happens regularly. Life’s speed bumps happen on a regular basis as well. There had to be something else, something more to it. Today, I think I finally got to the root of it: No regular practice.

It dawned on me that the best thing about my job (if you can call it a “job” in the traditional sense …) is the daily interaction with student-athletes on the men’s and women’s track/cross country teams. This is Finals Week. Other than a light workout at the track with some of the IC4A athletes, practice is over. The routine of meeting the team in the racquetball court – once at 11 a.m., again at 2 p.m. -- is done for a few months.

There is still plenty of work to do, to be sure. But the fun stuff, the reason for driving down Route 9 every day, that’s done for now. If I were to take notes and keep a diary (other than this fancy blog), I would realize that the end of this routine each year leads to a bit of melancholy. Or, in the case of yesterday, a bit of a cranky middle-aged guy (who is probably lacking sleep too!).

But today, for a few hours, life was good again. We were out at the Vassar track. My pal Krys stopped by with Stewart’s coffee, stupid jokes and endless stories in his thick, European accent, stories that neither Coach Horton nor me could completely understand. And yes, there were athletes – our athletes – running around the track and on the turf.

I miss it already.