49.  Starting Here

After the game, Brat Boy was disappointed. He’d played good defense, but the tape and cast had interfered with his shooting.

Blondie said, “Dad was right about doing the best you can under the circumstances.”  They got into a long discussion about the last time I’d been right, agreeing it hadn’t been recently.

“Can we get back to the point?” I asked

Blondie said, “So Brat Boy, at first, you passed every time you got the ball.  By the end you were dribbling and shooting. So what if you missed? You did the best you could with that cast on.  I’d say you made progress.”

“And you can’t measure progress without looking at where you started,” I said. “You started thinking you couldn’t play at all.” I told them about people I’d met who’d come a long way, but were miserable because they weren’t where they wanted to be. “They cheat themselves of a little bit satisfaction.”   

Today I will measure my progress from where I started, as well as where I want to be.

Sober Not Somber © 2015 by Ken Montrose

(Just a reminder: Sober Not Somber is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to anyone you might know is purely coincidental.)