The End of an errr...

I saw something the other day that said "1-20-09 - The End of an Error", naturally speaking of the wonderful downward spiral years of the Bush regime. But instead of spiraling downward myself, and reducing myself to a political rant, I want to talk about my own end of an era...

I decided to quit darts at the end of this season.

This decision was huge for me. I'll admit, my voice quivered and my eyes welled when I told my team. OBV2.0 consists of people who are very important to me - and I never want to let them down.

But as the season has gone on, confidence has left my darts, and as a result, I've become quickly frustrated. A surefire way to cure this is to practice more. Practice, however, is limited by my shoulder, which can only handle a mere 30 minutes of constant throwing. I suppose that this would be okay - as long as I practiced every day - but I simply cannot commit to that.

What used to be fun - what used to be my life, has become nothing but a source of anger and frustration. Being angry and frustrated does absolutely no good, and I hate being that way when I am surrounded by people I love.

The nice thing about it, though, is that it frees Sheryl and I up to do stuff on Friday nights. We are so busy with our jobs and I am trying to keep a regular cycling schedule, that we never seem to have enough time to do stuff that we want. Since I've been sick, I've believed in taking advantage of opportunities. By committing to darts on a weekly basis, I've limited my opportunities.

Darts has been such a great thing for me. I loved playing in the two leagues, and the regular tournaments and such, but that was when I had more time. I was careless, reckless and had a great time!

I'm searching for something bigger though, and more rewarding. Darts filled a void when I needed it, and introduced me to a lot of great people. But now I need to take care of other things that I've been neglecting.

Maturity sucks, but I'm grateful that I am open-minded and flexible enough to acknowledge when such a change needs to take place. I recognize that I will always yearn for knowledge I do not have, and experience things I never did before. And sometimes, you need to give something up to make way for the next great thing.

Last friday, Sheryl and I went to a "coffeehouse" event at Gilda's Club. It was an open mike, and featured a wonderful performance by the inspiring Jill Jack. It reminded me of the Wednesday night open mike night at the Cross Street Station when I was in college. Every Wednesday was magical and exciting. We never knew where the night would take us - and last Friday night could have been the same way (without all the alcohol!)... but we were committed to darts, which would pretty much guarantee to end in a haze of cigarette smoke, burning eyes, and the munchies at 1:00am, while getting ready for bed.

There is no magic in that.

I love OBV2.0. I am going to miss playing darts with them every Friday. However, we still have pick-up games to look forward to. And I am well-aware that I can always join a dart league in the future...

If the time comes.

To paraphrase taoist Lao-Tzu, "The only constant in the Universe is change..."

And I don't think he meant coins.