There are more than a couple of Red Wings bloggers and blogs who are at their, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” moment this morning.
That’s understandable. And it’s okay.
It’s July 21st, and the Red Wings do not have a general manager, their captain was last seen going “tarps off” at the FIFA World Cup final, and it’s getting to be painful receiving those marketing emails from the Red Wings that try to not show pictures of Patrick Kane or Dylan Larkin celebrating with Moritz Seider or Lucas Raymond.
To their credit, the Red Wings did score some goals in which Emmitt Finnnie or other players were celebrating with Seider and Raymond, so we see some decent crop-outs, but I hear ya. It feels like the S.S. Detroit Red Wings has run aground and sits rudderless on a shoal, and that’s an all-too-familiar feeling for those of us battling our way through the long, painful rebuild.
This is that kind of morning here in the hospital. Aunt Annie is in tremendous pain this morning, not because of anything in particular, but just because it is a high pain day, and I believe that, as a caregiver, there is nothing worse than watching someone you love go through pain when you are unable to help them alleviate said discomfort, even after she’s taken her pain medications and has received assistance from her nurses.
She’s just in so much pain that she’s nauseous, and I would rather be in pain myself than watch her suffer like this.*
We’re having a “high pain day” kind of summer right now, folks. And I don’t know many Red Wings fans who aren’t feeling more than a bit nauseous at present, with the team’s future dangling at the end of a rope like a dead yo-yo, dangling lifelessly.
It’s a bitch to go through, and we’re experiencing this on a collective as well as individual bases.
But there are no easy, simple solutions as to how to rectify the situation right now. The team needs to find its next GM, and soon. The team needs to determine what it’s going to do with its disgruntled captain, whose ask to get “out” has not changed (nor has his list of preferred destinations).
Sometimes all that we can do when we feel like we’re going to throw up because we’re in pain is the focus on our breathing, to focus on getting through the very next moment, and to hang on and hang in there for all it’s worth.
We can bitch, moan and complain to each other about how shittily we feel. That’s downright healthy, honesty, and it helps us deal with discomfort. But in the end, each and every one of us is on our own little pain journey right now, and this is a particularly “high pain day” during a “high pain summer.”
We are where we are at, and today, it’s about getting through the shift that we’re enduring together, reaching out to each other to attempt to spread the pain a little more evenly on the beams of sympathetic shoulders, and to hope that, this time, substantive change is on the horizon–the kind of substantive change that might usher a brighter day for Red Wings fans across the globe.
But for right now, it’s about getting through the pain, one breath at a time.
Don’t forget to breathe. These things don’t make the uncertainty and discomfort suck any less, but they make the pain at least somewhat bearable until we receive some very welcome and very necessary relief.
*I argue that the worst pain in the whole world is not the pain that we suffer ourselves, but instead, the pain that we are unable to help others relieve. Maybe it’s a caregiver’s thing, but I sure as hell feel similarly about this fan base’s suffering.
