My Relationship to Pain

Just below the orangish-red, newly painted toes of my pedicured foot, there is a puffy purple mark emerging.

 

I played soccer today. I played soccer during the 43-degree weather of a Minnesota October Sunday evening. I played soccer with a man who had a French accent and gray hair; a man who planted the entire weight of his body on cleats on the top of my foot.

 

I limped down the stairs tonight to let the yorkie-poo out.

 

This is not an uncommon occurrence for a soccer player. Even one who plays on a co-ed league for old folks, men over 35 and women over 30. Last week I went to school with a giant bruise on my elbow and a thumbprint bruise on my bicep. There was a purple olive on my thigh from a fist or a cleat. I don’t even want to tell you the number of toenails I’ve lost over the years to this game. Or the number of times I’ve rolled an ankle.

 

 

Many summers ago, my friend Emily once asked pointedly, lovingly, and mockingly, after seeing me hobble on yet another sprained ankle, “Do you have to play soccer? Would you like to just lay down on the ground while I beat you with a stick instead?”

 

“Would there be a way to win?” I asked earnestly, seriously considering the new sport, to the laughter of another soccer-playing friend.

 

 

 

I don’t know what my problem is.

 

I don’t know exactly what sort of crazy I am that makes me love this sport, makes me love the contact, the competition, the jostling and elbowing in front of the net. Why can’t I just be content to run? To swim? To move in a straight line without running into other people?

 

Ironically enough, in life, I find, I am trying hard to do just that—to move in a straight line, and avoid other people. I am finding myself so disinterested in men, at least the ones that are safe and doing all the right things, like calling in person promptly after getting my number, inviting me to dinner, and pursuing master’s degrees.

 

But then again, I am also avoiding the men not doing the right thing—the ones who are insincere or half-hearted or only half-interested.

 

I’m tempted, as the inwardly-introspective, prone to over-rumnination sort of person that I am, to focus only on the way I am disinterested in the nice guys who have asked me out. I am tempted declare myself masochistic- sadistically interested in inflicting pain on myself. I’m tempted to compare my dating life to my love for soccer, to classify myself as one of those women who loves bad boys and troubled relationships. I’m tempted to chastise and criticize and shame myself for bad choices and hasty decisions.

 

However, after careful consideration, I realize I am not shunning good guys in favor of bad. I’m not disinterested in someone just because he is nice. I’m also not dating a man who treats me like crap. I’m somewhere in dating limbo and mostly just waiting to see how things shake out.

 

 Maybe I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want.

 

I know I don’t want to talk myself into anything. I know I don’t want to date a man because I feel like I should. Tell myself that he’s cute and other people admire him and I know he’s really a good guy.  I would never want to be the woman some guy convinced himself to date and so I respect these cute, nice men enough not to be that girl convincing herself to like them.

 

I know I won’t tolerate being lied to, I know I won’t tolerate being treated disrespectfully, and so I know I’m not just drawn to the bad boys either. I know I want someone who communicates sincerely, who listens with his ears, his mouth, and his heart.

 

Some men I have dated have said they hear me, but I don’t always feel it. I have tried to talk myself into feeling it, into trusting them, but in the end, I just can’t.  I did that for a decade once already.

 

So I have decided I am done arguing with my gut—I have decided to just accept that it’s right. I am not interested the men asking me out on dates, not because I am sadistically hoping for a man who treats me badly, but because nothing so far has felt right.

 

Thus I continue, in life, moving in a straight line, avoiding people, men, for the time being.

 

Maybe this is why I love soccer so much. Maybe the field is where I let the wild girl out- the one who loves the collisions.

 

Soccer has been showing up in my dreams lately. I’m taking penalty kicks on goals on a field of white carpet. I’m throwing the ball in bounds to myself because no one else is checking to me.

 

There is a woman inside me who loves fighting. One who loves puffy bruises below orangish-red, newly-painted toes. But she only seeks pain on the turf, or the field. Never after walking away from the game.

 

Maybe that’s because she’s been down that road already.