Crying in Football

February 11, 2021

I cried my way through Super Bowl LV on Sunday. I started when Suzie Dorner, a COVID ICU nurse manager at Tampa General Hospital, tossed the coin to start the game. I cried through commercials, especially during Toyota's 1-minute testimony to the indomitable spirit of Jessica Long and when Bruce Springsteen reminded us of the hope that lies ahead. I even teared up during the game when there were errors or conversions or especially hard takedowns. (I worry about everyone's sons.) I cried when the Chiefs lost, and I cried when the Bucs won (yes, I know this was the same moment). My family thought that was a little over the top, so when one of them said, "Um, Mom, it's only a game... you don't even care about football," I had to tell them not to worry about me, it had just been such a sucky year. They nodded. They got it.

I've actually got a pretty stable shoulder (even if the above story makes it not seem that way), so my friends and relatives, and sometimes even my kids' friends and their relatives, tend to cry on it. People are typically embarrassed and apologetic when that happens, and I always respond: "No, see, you're supposed to feel this way! [Insert bad thing... like, say, a pandemic] SUCKS. Feeling awful about it is totally rational: It signals that your feelings are aligned with reality. So have at it."

I know: "Go ahead and feel like hell" hardly sounds like a pep talk, but it tends to function as one nevertheless—at least when couched in "you are actually being completely sensible right now" language. It's sometimes difficult to do this with our kids, though, because, after all, it's built into our DNA to leap between them and their suffering: When they feel sad or frustrated or angry, our heart wants to brush it away fast. But in the long run, what helps kids learn best to manage everyday frustrations is if we can be sympathetic ("yeah, that sure sucks") while letting them know (age-appropriately) that we're confident they can manage it, and also that we're nearby to help if they need a hand or if it gets out of control.

There are all kinds of benefits to being authentic—not least of which is that the highs are higher when you let the lows be low. Learning that you feel bad for a while and then you feel better is an important part of growing up. Of course, when emotions become so incapacitating that you can't get stuff done, it's crucial to get help, and it's also important to get help when the reverse is true, when there's a wall between your mind and your feelings and you don't feel anything at all. But all the in-between stuff is just part of being human, and we can all benefit from that reminder.

Technically, on Sunday, only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won. But as we saw all of the health-care workers in the stands and watched the players play their hearts out, it felt like the rest of us won, too, even many Chiefs fans. Was it only a game? Sorry, no, at least not this time: There was plenty of crying in football, and it wasn't just me.

—Deb