Facing and Embracing the Present Everything

I learned a lot from this year’s LA Kings run for the playoffs. They didn’t make it, by the way. That may sound like no big deal, especially if you are not a Kings or hockey fan. However, since the LA team took home the Stanley Cup last year, the fact they didn’t make the playoffs this year is sort of big. And if you are in touch with that true heart of a fan, it is sort of a pain.

That’s where the lessons came in.

Through observing the reaction of many a Kings fan, I learned that people simply DO NOT want to feel their feelings, especially those feelings of disappointment and pain.

In post after post, people used the two major tools when wanting to avoid the angst of missing out on the playoffs ... or missing out on anything. And those tools are...

1. The past
2. The future

As you may have learned previously or plan to learn down the road, there is nothing like the past to avoid the present, and nothing like the future to hide from the same. Many posts talked about the three previous seasons in which the LA team not only made the playoffs, but also won the Cup or finished in the Western Finals. The fact that the team has been around for almost 50 years? Who cares! The time period of interest is the previous three years. And why is that? Because that is where the fans can find residence in their “happy place.”

The other side of the equation is the future. Numerous other posts talked about coming back the following year - after a good Summer rest - to capture the Cup again, in keeping with the ”every-other-year” concept.

How many posts simply spoke of the pain and disappointment of losing out on even a chance at repeating as champion? Very few. I posted: “So sad and somewhat mad over the end of LA Kings season. Don’t want to hear about the damn future or the glory past. Right now this hurts.” To this I received some thoughtful comments, the best of which were two people who simply chose to reply with unhappy faces. :0(

That was enough for me.

In a time where emotions are squelched as if they were monsters under the bed, in a time where medication must be administered to adult and child alike, in a time where there is only a ”smile for the camera,” it can be a relief to simply allow myself to just be. And to just feel. You miss the playoffs, you are upset. You lose a friend, you feel loss. You say goodbye to a chapter in your life, you can grieve.

Tears are not poison; emotions are not the plague. They are as natural as any human experience. And that is what we are here - humans having a human experience.

Let us not grab, frantically and so swiftly, onto the past or the future to avoid what can be found - good, bad or indifferent - right here where the only reality resides ... the very moment.

James Anthony Ellis is a writer and producer still aching over the Kings season, mainly because he still doesn’t get what happened. He can be reached at www.LegacyProductions.org.