When I Went To Bed That Evening

""I felt the life drain from my blood. My bones softened. I felt this...this...this kind of predepression. Like, I knew I couldn't be depressed yet, because the game was still in progress. I still had to try to win, because that is what you do whenever you play any game. You try to win. You aren't allowed to give up, even philosophically. I still had to pretend that those final five seconds had meaning, and I could not outwardly express fear or sadness or disappointment. But I instantly knew how terrible I would feel when I went to bed that evening. I could visualize my future sadness. And because I was an eighth-grader — because I had no fucking perspective on anything — I assumed this would bother me for the rest of my life. It seemed like something that would never go away. So I stood on the edge of the free-throw lane, tugging on the bottom of my shorts, vocally reminding my teammates to box out, mentally preparing myself for a sadness that would last forever."
"Interesting," I said. "It seems that you are describing how it feels to be doomed.""