108 double-Stitches

Freeze frame.

David under the lights.

Clay dust lifting beneath his cleats. The metallic crack of aluminum slicing through cool air. Coaches clapping rhythm into thirty boys at once.

He told me he missed playing.

I did too.

There is something sacred about baseball. The smell of cut grass and sun-warmed dirt. The hollow pop of leather meeting leather. The rhythm of repetition until instinct overrides doubt. It pulls something steady out of you, something that remembers who you were before work calendars and school deadlines and vehicle repairs began competing for oxygen.

He is in sixth grade.

Junior varsity. Practicing with varsity.

Thirty boys stretching across a field that feels too big and too small at the same time, bigger arms throwing harder balls that snap into gloves with a sound that lands closer to the chest than the ear, coaches correcting and clapping while my son stands there, belonging.

Games start in two weeks.

Some are two and a half hours away. All of them at 4:30 or earlier.

I will miss some of them, and I know it, and he knows it, and we both say it is fine, and as I say it there is a metallic taste filling the back of my throat because I understand what growth requires and I understand what responsibility demands and I understand that sometimes a family cannot physically be in two places at once even when every fiber in you wants to tear in half and try.

Jacob is thinking about playing too.

County league.

Different field. Different nights. Different diamond under different lights.

Two schedules. Two directions. One family.

The stitching tightens.

Breathe.

Freeze frame.

The van rising onto the back of a tow truck.

Again.

We have driven that van to so many games already. Cleats in the back. Fast food wrappers on late returns. Windows down on country roads. It is the perfect transport for this season of life.

Or it was supposed to be.

The winch whines. Gravel grinds. For a second I imagine flames licking the undercarriage as it rolls away in some dramatic Viking farewell.

But real life is not cinematic.

It is invoices and waiting rooms and quiet recalculations about how much more we can absorb before something else has to give. It is asking how two baseball schedules work if the van is not back. It is wondering how dinner happens when first pitch is an hour away and work does not end on time.

We keep saying we hope to have the van back soon.

We say that every time.

Breathe.

Freeze frame.

My screen at work.

Rows aligned. Reports ordered. Calls stacking cleanly.

Ball one.

Pressure clarifies me. Complexity sharpens instead of scatters. When projects overlap and timelines tighten and everything is flagged for attention, I lean in. Patterns emerge. Decisions stack. Structure forms.

Strike one.

A call from the school. Pick up your daughter.

Strike two.

Another issue. Another collision. The office door opening mid meeting, one of my boys standing there while I am on a work call, headphones on, calendar full, not angry, not loud, just there, wanting time, needing time, and I have to say not now because the call cannot drop and the agenda cannot pause.

God, I hate when I have to do that.

Foul ball.

For a second I want to close the laptop, grab a glove, sit in the bleachers and let the crack of a bat erase the hum of fluorescent lights and status reports. For a second I hear it anyway. Ball meeting bat. Leather answering. Dirt shifting under cleats.

The count resets.

The work remains.

So do I.

The storm roars.

I stay in the eye.

Breathe.

Freeze frame.

Midnight.

Twenty two pages open on my screen.

Rewriting. Refining. Submitting.

One class hovering near a B. The 4.0 trembling.

There is fear there. Real fear.

Not about the number.

About what slipping represents.

I want excellence. I want control. I want everything tight and intact even when life is pulling from every angle.

The scream rises.

I let it pass.

Stoicism is not indifference.

It is restraint under pressure.

Breathe.

Freeze frame.

Dinner table turned into calendar math.

If David has a game here and Jacob has practice there and work runs late and the van is still in the shop and dinner time collides with warm ups and snacks replace meals and one parent goes east while the other goes west and the week stretches tighter and tighter.

My wife across from me.

Not behind me.

Beside me.

We do not panic.

We plan.

We do not unravel.

We rethread.

I could not do this without her.

The stitching holds because we hold it together.

Breathe.

When I zoom out, I see it clearly. This week is not about baseball, or a van, or grades, or meetings, or missed calls. It is about tension. A baseball holds its shape because of one hundred and eight waxy, red double-stitches pulled tight around something solid, and that tension is not weakness, it is structure. Families are not that different. Work pulls. School pulls. Schedules pull. Vehicles fail. Kids grow. Responsibilities stretch. And the only reason it does not split open is because someone keeps pulling the seams tight. The storm can spin. I do not have to. If that means I watch one game from the bleachers and miss another, if dinner comes from a cooler and homework is done in the backseat, if the van is late and the grades fluctuate and the calendar never fully cooperates, then so be it. One hundred and eight waxy, red double-stitches. Pulled tight. Holding shape.

Breathe.

This is where I am ending the week.

Still a dad. Still figuring it out.
Choosing presence over progress, at least for tonight.

Much love. Stay safe. Wash your damn hands.
I will see you next time.