Game 7

I'm rather proud that I never cried. 

Apart from that, I can't speak very highly of myself. I went without shaving or showering for days. As far as I know, I also went without smiling. My brain kept replaying times when things could have gone differently and didn't, ways the outcome could have been avoided. I listened to sad depressing music, and spent much too much time on the internet, drowning my sorrows in message boards.

People who loved me kept calling and texting to make sure I was ok. I appreciated their concern. But I hated them for not having to feel the same kind of pain that I was feeling. THEY DIDN'T KNOW HOW I FELT. 

This was by far worse than any break up in human history. Jennifer and Brad, Sandra and Jesse, Tony and Eva, Tiger and Elie, your heartbreak was nothing compared to mine. Yours were mere break ups. Mine was Game 7. 

An NBA season lasts longer than most relationships, so how can I be judged for feeling more upset about this loss than any girl? I spent October through June living and dying with this team. They were my family. Every few days, we communicated. We shared each others hopes and goals. We shared each others joy and pain, up and downs. When the players celebrated, yelled in triumph, suffered injuries, or lost games, I exalted, shouted, hurt, and lost.

I was never trained for this as a young sports fan. Cheering for the Connecticut Huskies and the Chicago Cubs, the lack of anything in between put me in a strange sports position: My teams were either so dominant that they won the championship, or so bad that they trained me to never really give myself up. But then, in '08, I fell in love.

The arrival of Garnett and Allen and the championship that followed stole my heart. A magical season, followed by a magical postseason, and topped only by four truly magical wins in the NBA finals. A lovable team full of lovable players who came through and were able to yell "Anything is possibuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuull" at the end? Amazing. I was smitten. 

I suffered through '09, but the blow of losing in the playoffs was softened by the certainty that Boston would have advanced if it hadn't been for the injury to Garnett. His return, and a gutsy, underdog performance in the playoffs that sparked the Celtics into the Finals in 2010 had me convinced that Boston was on their way to another championship. 

Don't get me wrong, I was terrified that they would lose. I imagined that if they lost, it would cause me unendurable pain, that it would eat at me every day. But after Kendrick Perkins went down, the Celtics blew a 3-2 series lead, a 13 point Game 7 lead, and finally walked off the court heads down as the Lakers celebrated, I felt something else entirely. I was filled with a terrible nothing. The same full, happy feeling that I KNEW, I had experienced two years ago, the feeling that I knew every Lakers fan was experiencing, it wasn't mine. And I knew it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. There was no next year for me, then. There was just last year, and how close we had come. Worse, there was the team and the fans I hated more than any other, all over Sportscenter, celebrating, planning parades, posting their own analysis, and generally being evil. 

A few days after Game 7, I was getting ready to go play pickup basketball, and I was searching my room for a shirt to wear. I grabbed a gray one sitting on my floor and turned it around to see my favorite Celtics 2008 Champions t-shirt. I looked at it for a minute, then pulled it over my head, admired myself in the mirror and walked proudly into the gym. The Celtics could lose every Game 7 for the rest of my life, but there were plenty of things I'd still have. I'd still have the 20 point come from behind, in which Ray Allen still made Sasha Vujacic cry like a little girl by blowing by him from the game winner. I'd still have Paul Pierce, hopping out of the tunnel after being injured in Game 1 to save the day. I'd still have the clinching game. I'd still have 131-92, and the Lakers wandering off the court, looking as dazed as a fighter who just caught a haymaker. I'd still have Garnett, completely incomprehensible, and crying, laughing, yelling, no one could tell exactly what. I'd still have Leon Powe catching Garnett as he swayed, repeating "I got you, I got you". I'd still have Pierce being handed the MVP trophy and raising it to the heavens with a yell, watching the city he had won over scream in delight. I'd still have this t-shirt. And I would always have '08.

For some people, this whole column probably seems over dramatic and silly. To them, sports don't mean much. The rollercoaster of emotions might seem ridiculous; that people live and die over the outcome of a bunch of overpaid men running up and down a wood floor for 48 minutes is not only ludicrous, but dangerously irresponsible in comparison to world and social issues. And maybe they have a point.

These are people who have never felt the true agony of seeing their favorite team lose. But they also have never felt the satisfied joy of victory of seeing their team win.

I pity these people.