Playing basketball was pretty much my life up until college.
I used to play all the time. I would spend hours a day out in the driveway trying to perfect my game. I played at the YMCA, in junior high, and 2 years of high school (before being on the team stopped being fun). I'm a pretty modest guy but basketball was something I was pretty good at and got even better at in my high school years. I was always a guy who was low on confidence even though I was good but that stopped being a problem the older I got. Even when I wasn't playing on an organized team, I would spend most of my time before and after school playing. It's not only what I loved doing but's it's also where I made the majority of my friends.
Once I graduated high school, I spent less and less time playing basketball. It wasn't until I was almost done with college that I got back into it. My friends and I would go to our school's fitness center and get full court games going. It was always a blast. Fast forward over 2 1/2 years and I hadn't even touched a basketball. I hardly ever thought about it, to be honest. I had started playing more tennis but, more than that, I just got lazy. I think that's what happens to a lot of people once they get older. Being lazy and also not having the time you once had.
Recently, I've been having major b-ball withdrawals. It came out of nowhere, really. My co-worker and I have been talking about getting people together and hooping but it hasn't happened yet. I hope it doesn't turn out to be one of those things you talk about forever but never actually do. I've been craving just dribbling a ball for the past couple of weeks. So, fed up with not fulfilling my need to play, I went out to the garage, found a couple of old basketballs (and the air pump because they were flat as hell), and got to work. We got rid of our driveway goal several years ago but it didn't matter. Just dribbling, for the first time in almost 3 years, was exhilarating. I did a few dribbling exercises I remember from school to the old feel of things. I was definitely rusty but the between the legs and crossovers started coming back to me. It felt great and it immediately brought me back to those days. Besides feeling great, there was something else I noticed...
Holy crap, I'm out of shape!
Just dribbling, forget playing a game, wore me out. This will not do. I'm been wanting to get back in decent shape for a while now and this just might be the catalyst. Since I don't have a hoop readily accessible, I'm just going to work on my dribbling for now. Once I get to where I'm not wheezing like I just ran a marathon, I'll think about playing in some actual games.
Out of shape or not, it just felt good to get back to my old past time.
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