Charming, isn't he?The love that Buckeye Nation has developed for our team over our lifetimes is immense. That can be seen in the amount of scarlet and gray worn around the streets of Ohio every day, and in the 106,000 screaming fans in the Horseshoe on fall Saturdays.
However, as we have all learned throughout our lives, love comes with pain. It is those who we love the most who have the ability to hurt the worst. This fall is an agonizing reminder of that fact.
There have been so many moments of hope. The Akron game, the occasionally stellar defense, and the first half at Nebraska all gave us reason to believe that things were turning around. Only none of those glimmers were sustained. Couple the on field struggles with the off-field antics and uncertainty, and our feelings can almost mirror those we have felt in failing relationships in the past.
So we woke up Memorial Day morning, only to find out that our long time love had broken up with us. We knew there had been some problems in the recent past, but nothing that had not been fixed before! Only this time, it was so much worse. There had been lies and cover-ups that we didn’t even know about. So much dirt was done behind our backs that we didn’t know whether to cry tears of pain, or say “good riddance” and move on. Even today, we keep finding out about things that were happening.
It should be simple to know that moving on is the right thing to do when someone hurts us that badly, but we had such an incredible decade together! We had been head over heels in love since he surprised us with that trip to Arizona in January 2003 and got us that ring. Then, sans a few hiccups here and there, the next 8 years were the most stable and strong relationship of our lives. Our friends were all jealous, and other people even started hating us. But that was all fine, as long as we had each other.
Unfortunately, we took it all for granted. We didn’t enjoy what we had enough while we had it. He left us not because he wanted to, but because he had to. It is the cliché of all clichés, but we have to believe it is true. Jim would never do anything to hurt us intentionally.
So here we are, nearly five months later, still scrambling to find some semblance of our former lives. We have been hurt so many times that we still don’t know how to feel. The roller coaster of emotions has us feeling numb to pain, and even love may never feel the same. The repercussions of our last break up are still in the back of our minds and soon will have direct impact on everything for years to come.
We must remember, however, that fall is a season of change. Things are starting to pick up for us a little bit. We have had some feelings lately that kind of remind us of what we used to feel just 12 short months ago. Losing love is the hardest single feeling in this human experience, but finding love is among the best. We can dwell on what is done, or we can move on.
What better time to move on than now? Let’s fall in love again! There’s a young quarterback who is sure to keep our minds occupied for a while…
