Let’s be honest for now

Be warned… INTENSE NAVEL-GAZING IS FORTHCOMING

There are approximately seventeen reasons I haven’t been making with the blogging, and all of them would be fair – I’ve been working obscene amounts, haven’t had a Saturday off in six weeks, haven’t been sleeping, am stressed as hell, and the depression that I live with has made a renewed showing in my life.

But no. The reason I have been eschewing blog posts to play hand after hand of Cards Against Humanity is because I don’t want to write about refereeing. Because the truth is – I’m not enjoying it.

That’s the first, unwritten rule of reffing. Enjoy Yourself. And I’m not.

All of the above reasons hold for why what is usually an excellent diversion from reality is turning in to something which is draining me. There are others – I’m carrying a couple of injuries, my washing machine has been broken for almost two months and nothing has been done about it, which makes washing my kit something of a mission. And I can’t handle any more abuse.

Yeah, I know, softcock, get over it, it’s just words. But it’s not. It’s anger which feeds into the knot in your stomach that has tied itself up knowing you’re going to cop more abuse this game. Self-perpetuating cycle.

I have depression. It’s been a particularly shitty time to have depression of late (if you want you can read why here) and so the parts of my personality that hate me have been particularly loud. I go into games beating myself up – and I’m less able to block out all that reinforcement.

I wonder if parents and coaches ever think about that. The idea that your referee might not just have his own shit going on, but have enough abuse going through his head that you’re actually doing damage.

I’ve apparently still been refereeing well – which is great. I can’t tell at the moment, because the depression is getting to my judgement first and filling it with crap.

Part of me wants to quit. I’m not moving up the grades, not being assigned to club matches, not getting any better. So if it’s all going to be more of the same why am I doing this?

I love the game. But I can’t keep battling this ball of stress and anger and hate that builds up in my stomach before and during games.

I leave for the Bingham Cup next Tuesday. I’m stressed out trying to work out all the details, trying to get enough kit together, trying to talk down my stupid brain which keeps telling me it’s all going to go badly and no one will like me and it’ll be just like fourth form camp. I’m not exactly in the ideal mood to referee at what will be a huge, and probably awesome event.

After that? Well, we’ll see. I’m getting my weekends back, I might get my Saturday morning mojo back too.

And just to prove I did try and blog, here’s a half finished blog post from three weeks ago.

THANKY!!

As you may know, my Pledgeme campaign to get me to Sydney has reached its target, and I am eternally grateful to everyone who has helped me get this far. However, I set the target at my lowest necessary goal, and I thought I would add an incentive to encourage anyone who was thinking about pledging.

Should this project reach $1000, I promise to travel to Sydney wearing a onesie. There will be photos. There will be video. There will be funny looks from security personnel.

There you have it  – Should I raise a grand, I will make even more of an idiot of myself than usual. And that’s not all! You, my strange and wonderful readers (all four of you) will get a chance to help pick what kind of onesie I’m going to wear. Pick one of these answers, or add your own! The winning onesie will be the one with the most votes when I cross the $1000 threshold.

Again, thank you heaps for contributing!