Day 6 - Taking stock world cup style

On this gloomy Sunday, nothing seems more natural than relaxing on the couch and watching the football matches from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Although I do not follow football religiously or even watch much during the regular season, I always seem to really get into the World Cup tournament. I love the excitement, and high stakes that drives the tourney, not to mention the in depth coverage of the hosting country
More often than not the flow of my life is often at a crossroads whenever the world cup comes about. Change in pace, in circumstance, the sudden goal from an unexpected position. Which asks the question: is four years an adequate measure of progress in one’s life?
Four years earlier, during the summer of 2006, E and I had just moved in together , into a cute little apartment at which we threw parties, had dinner parties and lived a social life. Four years back to 2002 I was roaming the streets of Bangkok after another upheaval, injury and a very thin spirit. I was three months away from finding the love of my life but of course didn’t know it. All my precisely crafted plans had gone up in smoke and I had no idea where I was headed except that I was going home, back to Toronto, to start over.
Now, in 2010, after more upheaval, injury and my plans going up in smoke I sit before the television watching the game play out, the sudden headers, the impassioned saves, the cursing and cheering. I don’t know whether to love the world cup tourney or fear it, given the connection that seems to have unfolded on in this writing. This upheaval, maybe it is simply a yellow card, a warning of more serious things to come if I continued living my life that way I have. Or maybe it is simply too many cases of wrong place, wrong time.