Crystal clear after 15 years

 

Apparently, crystal is the gift for a 15th anniversary, though I guess that's really for marriages.

If I'm married to this blog then I suppose that counts.

Oh, we've had our disagreements. There were the stretches in which we barely spoke to each other. It was like we'd grown sick of each other.

"Write more," the blog would say.

"I'd like to!"

"Well then do it! Try a post per day!"

If I recall, that conversation was probably back around 2011 or so and it didn't go well. We drifted further apart.

By 2018 I took one last swipe, writing two posts to end the year. Then came John Nash and his post-per-day.

It was like the blog and I had gone to therapy and we've never left. 

I struggle on a daily basis with this. I got into blogging because writing intrigued me. I had that voice in my brain for years telling me that I was a writer, all the way back to that professor in college. The blog would give me an avenue to jot thoughts down. Friends started their own, which was enough to get me to jump in, but only if I would truly commit to it.

Damn me and my commitments. My failed podcast still bugs me but I had to back off of some of the myriad (unpaid) things that I do.

Still, the blog opened doors and friendships. It's allowed me to tell stories and peel layers that haven't been exposed. Good, yes, but also bad. Wounds for sure.

All 3,310 posts are still online so no need to go back here. You can look it up. There are four drafts that sit in a folder and might never see the light of day. A few things -- some other drafts -- have been deleted. Otherwise, the wounds are there to be found.

If you were to review it all you'd see a person who has changed a bit in 15 years. I believe that. I know I've grown over the years and am mighty proud of it. That's something about our world that we don't give enough credit for. People can grow. They can "do better."

But I also decided many fights weren't worth fighting. I decided that I'd just keep many thoughts to myself due to our inability to have civil conversations.

Hell, just look at last week when I opened that "Field of Dreams" topic. That was personal for me and I decided to let you in. Some got it. Some didn't. Some took offense. Nature of the beast but it still had me thinking, "Why do I bother?"

Not that I've changed my opinion from that post or the defense of Joe Buck for that matter. 

There are no "rules." There is no "home office" that needs to rubber stamp said rules and opinions. I offer thoughts. You respond...or not. From there it can be a (hopefully) respectful debate.

Still, that's veering into a negative category and I'd rather reflect more positively today. Whether you've liked the posts or not wasn't necessarily the point. It was to get you to read and, maybe, think. Maybe it could inspire you to be better or do something or consider your own lot in life.

Or maybe it was just useless entertainment.

So why do I bother? That's a complex answer. It's habit and commitment and sometimes the desire to just write things down and hope there's an audience and often a need to just scream and hope nobody cares (re: "Field of Dreams").

There are also too many times when I just think about stopping. Maybe the views are low and it seems useless or the comments just aren't right or I'm just tapped out.

And yet I'm still here.

Fifteen years ago, shovels were put in the dirt at the corner of River and 161st to create a "new" Yankee Stadium and I was horrified. That was not long after I put "steelyankee.blogspot.com" together as the address for this endeavor. it was also after agonizing over what to call it. I realize it was the perfect name, reflecting the number that I've been identified with and the roads that have been part of my life. It was the perfect -- ahem -- marriage.

And so we sit here after 15 years of "Exit 55." Am I a better writer? I don't think so, actually. But I'm a better person. At least I'd like to think that.

When will the end come? There's no need to quantify that. Writers -- if I dare call myself that -- can write until they've lost that ability. For me, I tell stories and I often think that gets missed. It's the link between my play-by-play and writing. Sometimes those stories have opinions but they're never absolute and I think that's the thing that makes my blood run the angriest.

Babe Ruth is the GOAT to me. So is Jim Brown. Michael Jordan. The Beatles. Vin. These are opinions -- neither right nor wrong.

But we all agree Maroon 5 still sucks (you're welcome, John).

In the end, I often think that, as much as I'm a storyteller, I'm often an explainer, so it's easy to see why I've had to interpret some of these 3,300 posts.

And I guess we'll be interpreting for a while longer, as the 16th year of this gets underway.

By the way, next year's gift is wax.