I couldn’t sleep last night. I tried. All my brain could think about was football. Specifically the Kansas City Chiefs going from up 21 -3 to down 27 -24. Looking helpless for over a half of a game.

I got out of bed around 4 AM and moved to the couch where I was finally able to drift off for about 2 hours or so. Just enough time to dream.

I dreamt about a stag and a hunter. The hunter shot the stag with an arrow and then followed it’s trail of blood for miles before finally catching up to the wounded animal and putting it out of its misery by crushing it’s head with a rock.

Dreams are weird. Clearly (to me) my brain was weaving a tapestry from a video game I played probably 10 years ago, The Last of Us and a little bit of MacGruber, and then laid that canvas on top of the frame that is the Chiefs’ final game of the season.

I do think that dreams have some kind of value though. I’m not sure what, but most of the time I try to remember them as best as I can to interpret them as warnings. Not explicit warnings about deer and hunters, but more like some kind of defense mechanism. A subconscious protection so I’ll know what to do in a comparable real life situation. A stakes free trial run to prepare myself.

I’m honestly not sure what this one was supposed to teach me though. I mean, once the deer is shot, it’s kinda fucked, right? But why wouldn’t it try to keep limping through the short remainder of its life? 

Maybe it was supposed to teach me a lesson about hubris. I was extremely cocky about the game. Nonstop shit talking the entire first half. I had (extremely cheap) champagne on ice and I was throwing around phrases like “victory lap.” But fuck that, my hubris didn’t do anything to the team. That’s the fun part about sports, I can act like whatever I want and it doesn’t change anything on the field. Why watch sports if you’re just going to be a downer?

I opened the (extremely cheap) champagne after the Chiefs kicked a game tying field goal. Not because I was celebrating, but because I knew it was over and this was as good as it would get for the rest of the day. They’d been shot by an arrow on the last drive of the first half and it was only a matter of time before their skull was crushed with a small boulder.

So what does it mean and what did I learn? Probably nothing and nothing. I like football, the team I root for is largely decided arbitrarily based on where I was born. I like the Chiefs, but if I was from Wisconsin I bet I’d like the Packers. Had I been born in Cincinnati, I’d probably have slept like a baby last night.

It’s just one night though. Maybe that’s the lesson? Drink (extremely cheap) champagne whenever you want, and move on. The real fun of sports isn’t the win, it’s hanging out with friends, and cooking burgers. That’s a nice fallback when you lose, at least. Or maybe I just have a terrible brain disease. There’s literally no way of knowing.

Feature photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA from Pexels

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