Why I Came Back

If you found your way here from Twitter then you probably know I’ve been watching the Mets a lot lately. Like way more than I’ve watched them in years. In many ways my return to baseball was out of the blue. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized baseball was really the only place for me to turn after the past couple of years.

When the pandemic started I was neck-deep in the theatre world. I had a job in a Broadway theatre, was going to as many auditions as my schedule would allow, and making plans to register with casting agencies that oversee extras work in the city. But after my last in-person audition on March 8, 2020, that all came to a screeching halt.

Through the first year of the pandemic I planned on going back to my theatre routine whenever things reopened. But as the world got back on track I just wasn’t ready.

I watched as seemingly everyone was more ready to go back out into their regular lives than I was. I watched as people went back to Broadway shows and movies and hockey games and anywhere else while I just couldn’t get myself to do the same. I watched this for basically all of 2021.

As the calendar turned to 2022 and I still was way more hesitant than even my most cautious friends, I was frustrated. Despite the fact that I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology and I know seeing a therapist is actually just about the most normal thing you can do these days, it took until the beginning of this year for me to finally find one for myself. Even when you know your brain is telling you wrong things it still isn’t easy to turn around and tell your brain to shut up.

But I’ve finally started working on doing that.

So, where does baseball fit into all this?

At the end of June I went to Yankee Stadium. It was my first baseball game since 2019 and my first big, crowded outing since the pandemic began. And I didn’t hate it. Despite my pregame anxiety and mid-game OCD I went and sat there and enjoyed my chicken fingers and fries and Oatly soft serve (I have to give credit to the Yankees for having an actual non-dairy ice cream option) and watched the Astros no-hit the Yankees.

And along the way I realized I could handle baseball games.

I finally went back to Citi Field on August 6 and then I was back again three weeks later. For the first time in longer than I can precisely date Citi Field felt and continues to feel like home. And I think it’s mostly because it’s just about the only place I can go where I feel normal, where I feel like the old me.

Without getting too deep into what the most cautious of scientists and doctors say about COVID precautions — sitting at a baseball game, a Mets game specifically for me, is where I can feel comfortable and relatively safe and not so overwhelmed with guilt that I’m putting myself and the high-risk people in my life in danger. It’s where I can do something I used to do with some of the pandemic-era precautions and habits but not so many that my brain short-circuits and leaves me wishing I’d just stayed home.

It certainly helps that the Mets are good (not that I’ve ever been one to abandon them because of poor on-field play). It helps that they have players like Mark Canha and Taijuan Walker who aren’t shy expressing their support for the LGBTQ+ community. (Mark Canha has won me over in a million ways including but not limited to his attempt at making challah and latkes during Chanukah but this is a conversation for another time.) It helps that they invited Josh Thole back for Old Timers’ Day and gave me a reason to be TholeMoley once more. All these things came together at just the time I needed them and was ready to take advantage of them.

I’ve been craving normalcy for two and half years and it turns out the Mets are able to give it to me.

Theatre is going to be there when I’m ready for it but I’m simply still not ready to be indoors in the same room as hundreds of people for multiple hours at a time. The same goes for hockey games and, like, eating inside at restaurants.

I’m slowly putting together the pieces of my new life and the Mets are able to fill some of the massive void left by theatre.

Am I nervous (read: terrified) about where I’ll be left when the Mets season comes to an end? More than you know. Am I self-conscious about barging back into a community I’ve only been on the fringes of for a few years? You bet. Do I even know how to be only a baseball fan and not someone watching the game while simultaneously working towards a career in the industry? Not really. Am I still going to juice this normal for everything it’s worth? ABSOLUTELY.

I know I don’t owe an explanation to anyone. I know most of hashtag MetsTwitter has welcomed me back into the fold without a hitch. But I also know it’s kinda weird that one day I was tweeting my generic sarcasm and the next I was ready to be founder and president of the Mark Canha Appreciation Society.

Also I know I don’t usually share anything this personal so I’m prepared to throw my phone in a ditch after publishing this.

All this to say, for the time being I’m back and I’m happy to be here.

LFGM

Now, if only I could find a way to get a Mark Canha shirsey.