The Insane Game

I hate when my mind starts to play The Game.

It's ridiculous and a total and utter waste of mental energy. But The Game plays on. The rules are kind of fuzzy, but this is the gist of it:

1. Before The Game can start, I have to be experiencing some kind of maddening mix of uncertainty and hope about something.

2. There are two . . . okay, in sticking with the game analogy, goals. One goal is called "Why It's Totally Unreasonable and Never Going to Happen." The other goal is called "Why It's Okay to Think That in Spite of Everything, It Will Still Happen."

3. Then the whistle blows, and what would ordinarily be considered likely happenstances or mundane coincidences turn into little soccer-like balls that go hurtling into the direction of the "Why It's Okay to Think That in Spite of Everything, It Will Still Happen" goal. The goalie guarding it gets mercilessly pelted, and the balls that don't blindside him go whizzing past him into the goal with superhuman speed. The goalie guarding "Why It's Totally Unreasonable and Never Going to Happen" just kind of stands there. He's just chillin. He's examining his fingernails. His job is pretty much done even though The Game is going on, because (I forgot to mention this part of The Game) before the whistle blew to signal the start of the game, a big, firey, gignormous monster of a soccer-like ball tore past him into the goal and burned right through the net. It's now lying there abandoned, smoking on the ground.

4. Mind you, there are no teams per se, just balls that go flying in one direction except for the monster fireball that burned straight through the net on the other side. The score is always disconcertingly lopsided. 50 million-1. Something like that.

Okay, I've already reported on the huge fireball (albeit in hazy terms) concerning Guy 2. Now begins the onslaught of millions of little balls that go whizzing past at superhuman speed. And my goalie can do nothing to stop them.

• He called the other night!---GOOOOAL!
  
• I failed to mention to him I was going to Auburn for my Spain orientation thing the next day but still just happened to run into him on the way to the meeting!---GOOOOAALL!


• At the orientation meeting, I asked a girl next to me something about the forms we were filling out, and I when I looked over at her form while she was answering my question, I noticed that she had the same (uncommon) last name as Guy 2!---GOOOAAALLLL!

And these are just the most recent soccer-like speed balls. The irony of it all is that the winner of The Game is rarely the winner in real life. "Why It's Totally and Unreasonable and Never Going to Happen" often comes out on top despite the insanely lopsided score. There must be something about the sound of the speed balls whistling past that keeps my hopes, even if a mere millimeter, above ground.

In the end, I have faith that God can do anything, no, more than that, He's proven to me that He can on several occasions. But there's a difference between having faith and leaving things in God's hands and obsessively and irrationally clinging to an absurd, selfish wish. More than anything else, I pray that I don't pitch head first into the latter.