I know that the phrase “sports is an escape” can be overused but it became very true during the Nationals Game 5 loss to the Cubs, a game where we once again lost in Washington DC as the favorite. Now I must say that the Cubs played a great game and a great series and absolutely deserve to move on, but it was a game we should have won and made costly mistakes.

Last night’s game was the most emotional roller coaster of a game that I have ever experienced and one that I’ll need a couple days to recover from via lots of beer. The Nats took the lead early on and things looked very promising until that god awful 5th inning where I saw the worst baseball I have ever seen and we just imploded before slowly climbing back where we were potentially one swing away from extra innings.

Now, my life has changed drastically over the past few months. A lot of people know bits and pieces of it but no one knows every part of it (a problem I have been trying to work out with my therapist). I have been going through a very rough breakup with someone that I still have a strong emotional connection to that I basically have ruined from bad decisions and fear. I also have been struggling with depression, which I think I have had for a while but had been exacerbated over the past few months. I sit in bed on my days off feeling empty inside and unable to do anything but sleep all day, I binge watch the same shows on Netflix over and over and I struggle to find happiness. I have become a shell of who I once was but I am taking steps to come back from it but I have a long way to go.

Now to tie it in with sports. I absolutely LOVE watching sports. I have teams of multiple sports and levels that I root for, buy jerseys of, listen to podcasts about, and talk with other like-minded people about. Growing up in Virginia I naturally went with the DC teams professionally and my alma mater Virginia Tech for collegiate sports. None of my teams have won the championship during my lifetime. Closest was when the Hokies lost to Florida State in 1999 in the national championship game. The Washington Redskins won the Super Bowl right before I was born. The teams that invest most of my time and energy are VT football, the Washington Capitals, and the now eliminated Washington Nationals.

The Capitals constantly become the best team in hockey and yet cannot make it past the second round. This past postseason was especially rough because I was watching Game 5 with my boyfriend when they won and then watched Game 7 in that same bar after we were broken up, surrounded by Penguins fans and being the only one in a Capitals jersey. Other fans comment with things like “oh of course we lost, it’s what we do, we’re cursed” but I am not one of those people. I believe. I believe with everything I got for our team. And it’s always come to blow up in my face.

Last night’s game 5 was very cathartic because I felt so many emotions to such extremes from excitement to anger to frustration to elation to sadness. My emotions have been sitting on the couch and suddenly were thrown into a marathon. During that time I finally felt normal again and what I felt like before my depression set in. It was finally back…and now it’s over.

What made this loss especially frustrating was that I was so desperate for something good to happen with my life. I have been feeling like every aspect of my life has become a loss and I wanted a win really badly. So badly that it hurt when it didn’t come to fruition. It was just another reminder that I’m just not the person that good things happen to. This feeling of failure is going to be a part of my life for years to come. I just want something good to happen and the more it doesn’t happen, the worse it feels.

Tonight sucks, everything just sucks right now and I just want to sit in a corner and cry and watch now usual shows on Netflix to calm me down. All while I see other fans celebrating (as they should be) and feeling the joy I long for so badly. I know it can seem pathetic to care so much about a team that you’re not doing anything for but it’s not “just a game” to me. It’s something real that I can use to forget things that I am struggling with. It’s a part of me and right now it sucks that it is but I’ll be back at it again for another team, another season, another chance. Hoping that one day I’ll finally get that win that I need.

I know this journal was a bit all over the place but I needed to get this out of my head.