I can remember sitting on the multicolored brown shag carpeting in the basement watching the zenith with the rabbit ears as my dad sat on the mod style avocado green canvas couch behind me. Granted we had a very stylish bright orange high back chair and mustard yellow shorter round chair to match but he preferred the couch. It was the early 80's and summer in Chicago which meant two things. The Cubs on WGN, with Harry Carey announcing and watermelon. My dad even introduced my oldest two children to this tradition when they were little. Back in those days the Cubs were not a winning team. They did not need to be really. They were a Chicago institution and still are. It was about the atmosphere and the love of the game and I can guarantee a good chunk of my childhood friends have similar memories of watching them in their own horribly decorated family rooms.
This year was different. As most of the free world knows a 108 year drought was broken last week. Over a century. I found myself thinking about how exciting it was for us fans to watch the crazy celebrations and have our smallest children wander through the house singing,"Go Cubs Go"....ok that would be my smallest child....as if the Cubs had finally crossed the ultimate finish line. It occurred to me all of the athletes that came and went in that time period. Slugging away yet never hitting this mark. There was all the management that I would only assume was trying desperately to get the Cubs back on top. The frustration that likely ensued over this many years without a winning season.
I think this should be our takeaway from the Cubs. We all have those fans who support us no matter what our failures are. Those are the people we need to keep in our lives. The ones willing to sit on the shag carpet and cheer us on when we fall on our faces, or as Bill Murray did on camera, openly weep for us in our successes. These are the people who sing along with Harry Carey in the seventh inning stretch no matter how many runs behind we are.
Outside of the people, the Cubs have taught us a lot about perseverance. Exactly 108 years of perseverance. Getting my head around that is almost impossible. Falling down, getting up again to slug it out some more, strategizing and re strategizing for over a century despite frustration is nothing short of inspirational. I think about my decades of weight loss and fitness failures. The fair weather friends that have come and gone as I fell on my face time after time. The crazy strategies I employed myself, everything from fad diets to pills, to different exercise attempts , like in the 90's when I attended step aerobics at a studio that had an affinity for the song,"Achy Breaky Heart". Failing and failing again. Until now.
This is why this week my Cubs workout tank demonstrates more than my love for my kinda town. It inspires me to keep slugging, keep going and look for the true fans in my life. As I look toward my Spartan Race, in six days, a World Series of sorts for me as until now I had considered this completely out of reach I consider the Cubs winning the series to be my sign that I too, can cross this finish line. Ironically the race is at Fenway. The only thing that would make it better would be if it were at Wrigley.
Well, it won't stop me from singing,"hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are going to win today!"
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