Tel Aviv

Well here we are again.

Last week I got a phone call from my agent on Thursday, a plane ticket was bought for me on Friday, I signed a contract on Saturday, and got on a trans-Atlantic flight to Israel on Sunday.

I'm going to preface this post by saying I am really happy to be here. I'm excited about the next four months of basketball and I'm very much looking to stuffing my face with falafel, learning random words in Hebrew and touring Jerusalem with a Bible in my hand (well actually it will be a lonely planet book but it'll talk about the Bible a lot).

That being said, I'm slowly becoming disenchanted with playing abroad. In order to avoid doing a 'Brett Farve' I won't be announcing my retirement prematurely, or maybe not even maturely; understandably the journey from pro athlete to ex pro athlete can be rife with false starts. But for me, suffice to say, the romance of living alone and dribbling a ball around in a foreign country is not as appealing as it once was. What I don't want to insinuate is that I'm not embracing this experience. If you don't know me, I'm actually really good at looking at the negative and then quickly moving on to the positive and pretty much staying in that positive place as long as I want to delude myself.

So please no comments about how lucky I am to be playing abroad. I get it. I am. I have been. Pinching myself has actually been the norm for the last 7 years.

I've heard it all before "you are getting paid to play the sport you love", "I'll trade spots with you", "its better than working in a cubicle". blah blah blah. I mean I can't argue with any of that. My life has been charmed. No doubt about it. But this lifestyle does have a cost, one I was willing to pay for a long time and now I'm just not as willing. Its really that simple. It has nothing to do with basketball, or my body or losing the love or the competitive fire. Its more about being away from my 'real life' more than I want.

To sum it up:


* as outgoing as I am, I'm a little tired of making new friends ALL the time. Not new people to meet or hang out with but attempting to find emotional intimacy in the space of a few months and then leave again. I've had only a handful of American teammates over the years (Erin, Athena and Giuli among them) that I've had more in common with than being American and playing basketball.

* 22 1/2 hours of free time a day is not as appealing as it sounds when you are 5,000 miles away from the people you love and they are asleep when you are awake and you're asleep when they are awake. (yes we practice for an hour and a half)

* I've moved into dirty apartments with mattresses that may have had blood stains on it, bug filled studios, and plastic covered couches. Frat house living is not my idea of a good time. But what can I do? Besides some plants and pillows, I can't spend time decorating a place I'm going to leave.

*On that note: I've never bought a piece of furniture. It just seems wrong to me to turn 30 without some home furnishing that you went to a store and picked out and had delivered like a normal person. Its like some milestone into adulthood that I've managed to avoid.

*I can barely sign up for a gym membership at home because I never know when I'm leaving. Good thing I don't need cable television and thank god I have a brother with a house so I can maintain a residence without breaking leases and packing up and paying first and last months rent.

* Getting new bank accounts, closing old accounts, grocery store discount cards, gym memberships, movie rental cards, etc. The minutia of modern life- not fun to do over and over again in a foreign language. Bonding with someone in a foreign country that is nice enough to help you is special though-reminds you of all the good people that are out there. Altruism exists.

*Running a business in three month chunks of time sucks.

*Dating- superficially dating men that don't speak english is fun in your early 20s. Finding people you actually like that do speak English and then leaving is not so awesome.

*Being around women ALL the time, most of who are 20 years old, is only manageable if you can balance out the rest of your time with a more diverse social group. On second thought, I'll revise what I said earlier-they don't even have to speak English... just let them be male.

*Holidays and special events- This last Thanksgiving was the first Turkey Day I was home in 5 years. I've missed more birthdays, retirement parties, weddings than I can count.

*This is really what it comes down to: feeling like I'm always living in two different worlds, always having to reinvent myself, never able to get momentum in one place, stopping and starting, creating a life in too many unconnected spaces.

*Playing professional basketball is fun. But it doesn't feel all that productive. I've only been here for two days so I can't say much about how it is here; but in general in Europe, with few exceptions, I can get a more competitive game going to open gym in Seattle. That's not to say that I think professional sports aren't a productive profession, not everyone has to be directly saving lives or working for a non-profit to be a contributing member of society, I just think for me there is more I want to do. And for longer than an hour and a half a day.

*I've worked for free for weeks, months, practiced and played without so much as a thank you for doing it for free, then gotten fined when we lost even though I was playing FOR FREE. And am still owed over 15k by my last team.

*There are things I love about traveling: getting lost, finding your way, meeting new people, being confused, getting through a day in a foreign country (finding food, learning something new about the city, understanding a taxi driver, correctly converting currency, successfully finding a public restroom) can be fun and exhilarating. When its your everyday life ALL the time, its not quite as amusing.

*Playing in front of strangers can never compare to playing in front of your loved ones.

*Returning home to an empty apartment after a loss knowing you have a whole week to sit there alone thinking about it definitely makes me want to pull a Brett Favre.

*Returning home to an empty apartment after a win, drinking a beer and high fiving yourself isn't really that much fun either.

*Drinking while video chatting is still drinking by yourself even if you try to convince yourself its not the same thing. Not that I'm totally against drinking alone.

*checking your email/facebook 20, 50, okay infinity (thanks BreDub) times a day because you just want some news from home=super lame. I don't really want to act like a needy 13 year old.

In all honesty, the price of playing abroad has been well worth it. I have gotten to play the game I love as a professional and seen more of the world than I ever thought possible at my age. I did exactly what I wanted to do while I was young and single and free and unsure what I wanted to do with my life. This profession has given me this time to find myself, to explore, to dream, to write, to be bored, to adjust, to think, to develop relationships, to travel. And for the next four months, I have a great team filled with nice people from the management and coaching staff to the players and gym maintenance people. I get to live in a beautiful suburb of Tel Aviv, 2 miles from the beach and get paid to play the game I love and still have time to work on my book and my business and explore Israel. Despite the previous text, I'm actually in a great place, ready to make the most of this experience but also aware of the changes in my mindset, leading me to other wonderful and great things in my life.

The Delusion has begun.....