Bowling
I was watching an episode of the Simpsons, the one where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball with his name on int for Marge's birthday. I had an epiphany while watching her move over from one side of the lane to the other and going from a single pin to a strike. When I was in high school, I joined a bowling team. We met one night a week and just bowled. I was terrible. I still am. I did, however, learn some powerful things about myself. That is the earliest time I realized I had a problem with anger. Every time before that I just accepted the way I felt and let myself go. I wanted to control myself at bowling though. There were girls there. I found out years later the girl I was interested in was a lesbian. That too would haunt me throughout my life. I had no idea how to make the anger go away.
The bowling was only half the frustration I encountered on bowling night. My mother noticed how upset I would be when I came home. There was a night when my parents had some friends over and asked me to find a ride home. I walked. It was about six miles. It wouldn't be the last time frustration over a woman would make me do something stupid. Six or seven years later, I walked from a friend's house to Westhimer where I caught a bus back to my apartment for the exact same reason.
The epiphany is about sports. I've always wandered why sports are so important to some people. I realized while watching the Simpsons and thinking about what I learned during bowling that people use sports to communicate and learn the social ins and outs. I wander if that is part of what I missed. I did miss something. Somewhere along the way I missed learning how to date, flirt, the mating ritual. Now, I have to learn at thirty five. I think the first step was a willingness to learn. That happened a while ago. I wander what the next step is.