The Last Straw

We swore we would never be grumpy old men...

-🏴‍☠️-Short Story-🏴‍☠️-

After Practice

The sun was sinking behind the chain link backstop, stretching long shadows across the infield dirt. The air still held onto the day’s heat, thick with the smell of cut grass, leather, and a faint trace of stale nacho cheese from the concession stand.

I leaned against the dugout fence, watching the last few girls pack up their gear. Next to me, Justin, our ever suffering coach, stood with his arms crossed, staring out at the field like a man trying to calculate just how many years this game had shaved off his life. His hat was pulled low, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple.

"Rough one, huh?" I said.

Justin let out a slow, exhausted breath. "Dude, I’ve had kidney stones that were a more pleasant experience."

I chuckled. "That bad?"

"If I had a dollar for every time one of our girls swung at a pitch that wasn’t just outside the strike zone but damn near in another zip code, I could retire," he said, rubbing his face. "And don’t get me started on the errors. My God, the errors. It was like watching a game of hot potato, except nobody wanted to win."

"Yeah," I nodded, "but it wasn’t a total disaster."

Justin turned his head slowly toward me, eyes narrowing. "We lost by eight."

"Yeah, I stopped counting to be honest," I admitted. "But was that the worst part of the night?"

Justin blinked. "I mean, it’s up there, dude. It’s up there."

I held up a finger. "Consider this, Madison finally got a hit."

He hesitated. "Yeah… okay, yeah. She did."

"Not just a hit," I pressed. "A stand up double. You see the look on her face when she got to second? Kid was grinning so big I thought her cheeks were gonna split open."

Justin sighed, nodding. "Alright, that was nice. She’s been grinding all season, I’ll give her that."

"And," I added, "we didn’t have to listen to John scream at the ump like he’s auditioning for Gladiator."

That finally cracked through his frustration. He let out a short laugh. "Oh, man. Yeah. Where was he tonight?"

"Work trip, I think. Point is, we actually got to enjoy a game without a grown man losing his mind over an 11 year old’s strike zone."

Justin shook his head. "I swear, I thought I was gonna have to physically restrain him last week."

"So you’re telling me tonight wasn’t an improvement?"

Justin exhaled slowly. "I mean, when you put it like that… we didn’t have everything go wrong."

I nodded. "Exactly. Look, I get it. You care. That’s why you’re out here, why you lose sleep over how many dropped fly balls happen in a single inning. But, man, you’re letting it get to you. The losses, the mistakes, the stuff you can’t control. It’s eating at you, and if you’re not careful, it’s gonna turn you into one of those miserable old guys who yells at clouds."

Justin huffed. "I’m not that bad."

I just stared at him, my expression thick with judgment.

"Okay, fine," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "Maybe I’m on the path."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "Look, I'm not saying don’t care. Just don’t let the little crap steal the good moments, because those are the ones that matter. Madison got a double. John wasn’t here. Nobody broke a bone. And in ten years, no one’s gonna remember the score of this game, but Madison? She’s never forgetting how that hit felt."

Justin was quiet for a moment. He glanced out at the empty field, the bases now just white squares in the dirt, the outfield fence swaying slightly in the evening breeze. Finally, he let out a slow breath and nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Alright. Maybe it wasn’t all bad."

I grinned. "That’s the spirit."

Justin smirked. "But if they boot another routine grounder next game, I’m making them all run laps."

I laughed. "Fair. But, you know, maybe run 'em with 'em. Might help burn off some of that bitterness."

Justin chuckled. "I’ll think about it."

We stood there for a while, watching the last sliver of sun disappear beyond the outfield fence. The game was over, but the next one was coming. And maybe, just maybe, Justin would be ready to enjoy it.

---

“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness and small obligations given habitually are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort.” - Humphry Davy¹

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-🏴‍☠️-Essay-🏴‍☠️-

The Weight of the Small Things

It’s never the hammer blows that break us. The ones we brace for: death, disaster, betrayal. We see them coming, standing ready like a man tightening his jaw before impact. We build walls of resilience, fortifications of stoicism, preparing for the worst. But no one fortifies against the small things. The ankle biters. The slow, gnawing inconveniences that chew at the edges of sanity until there’s nothing left but frayed nerves and clenched teeth.

It’s never the grand tragedies that undo us, it’s the phone charger that only works at a precise 45 degree angle. The printer that refuses to print when your child just told you about a homework assignment, 5 minutes before school. The driver who brakes for a shadow in the road. The endless customer service calls, the inexplicably vanishing socks, the coffee you spill in your lap because some unseen force decided today would be the day your grip fails you.

Petty frustrations, each one insignificant alone, but together they form a slow, suffocating avalanche. The pressure builds, unnoticed, until one day, snap. And not over something grand. Not over loss, war, or betrayal. No, it’s a stubbed toe, a coffee cup slipping through your fingers, the damn robotic automated phone menu that doesn’t have an option to reach a real human being. And that’s the moment it happens, the mask slips, the patience shatters, and suddenly, you’re standing there, vibrating with rage over something so stupid it would be hilarious if it weren’t happening to you.

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“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” - Muhammad Ali²

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The Slow Descent into Bitterness

We all swear we won’t become bitter. That we’ll never be the grumbling, muttering old bastards scowling at the world. But the slide is slow. The child who laughed at life’s absurdity is buried beneath layers of experience, each one a trade. Wonder swapped for weariness. Trust exchanged for caution. Joy surrendered for the simple, brutal efficiency of not giving a damn. And before we even notice, we’ve become the very thing we swore we never would be, exhausted, short tempered, and suspicious of anything that even hints at happiness.

Bitterness doesn’t arrive all at once. It creeps in, unnoticed, in the space between disappointment and adaptation. It’s in the forced smiles at conversations that feel hollow, the unspoken frustrations that never quite make it past clenched teeth. It builds with each unfair outcome, each betrayal of trust, each time life reminds us that effort does not always equal reward. What begins as a quiet disillusionment becomes a reflex, a hardened stance against a world that seems intent on proving our worst fears right.

And yet, bitterness is a prison of our own making. It tricks us into thinking that protecting ourselves means closing ourselves off entirely. The walls we build to keep out pain also keep out joy. The armor we wear to shield ourselves from the world becomes the very thing that weighs us down, turning us into spectators rather than participants in our own lives. We end up not just guarding against suffering, but against the possibility of anything meaningful at all.

Time wins. It always does. It carves us down, whittling away the softness until all that remains is whatever armor we’ve built for ourselves. And yet, the battle isn’t against time, it’s against ourselves. Against that creeping bitterness that convinces us to stop looking for beauty, to stop laughing at the absurdity of it all. The real battle is to reclaim even fragments of what we lost along the way.

But reclaiming those fragments isn’t as simple as deciding to be happy again. The world doesn’t hand back what it has taken. We have to dig for it, to sift through the weight of experience and find the moments of light that still exist. It means breaking old habits, letting go of grudges that serve no purpose, learning to see the absurdity in frustration rather than letting it fester into resentment. It means choosing curiosity over cynicism, even when the latter feels easier. Most of all, it means recognizing that while we may never be able to return to who we once were, we can still choose who we become.

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“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” - Maya Angelou³

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The Lie We Were Sold

We were sold a lie early on, work hard, stay serious, build something, and you’ll find happiness waiting at the end. And so we took the deal, never realizing that the cost was everything else. We put our heads down, endured, and reached the other side only to find exhaustion and the quiet realization that joy wasn’t waiting for us. Instead, we found a pile of responsibilities, obligations, and an ever growing list of things that piss us off.

For those who served, this lie came wrapped in discipline and duty. They told us that suffering had meaning, that sacrifice would be rewarded, not just with parades or medals, but with purpose. Yet, the truth is, many of us emerged from the other side only to find an empty home, a world that moved on without us, and a nation that didn’t know what to do with its warriors once the fighting stopped. We traded youth for experience, dreams for survival, and in the process, lost the ability to simply exist without mission or direction. And with it, came bitterness.

Bitterness isn’t just a reaction to injustice, it’s a byproduct of expectation. The world doesn’t owe us ease, joy, or fairness, but the child inside us still believes it does. And when reality finally crushes that belief, it’s easy to let resentment set in, to let cynicism take root where hope once lived. The veteran who once carried himself with pride now fights not on battlefields but in VA waiting rooms, bureaucratic mazes, and the quiet torment of sleepless nights. We become those joyless, grim faced adults we mocked in our youth, unaware of the slow descent until it’s too late.

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“We forge the chains we wear in life.” - Charles Dickens⁴

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The Other Way Forward

But there’s another way. Stoicism, Taoism, Absurdism, they all whisper the same truth: control is an illusion. The world will do what it will, regardless of our desires. Strength isn’t about forcing reality to conform to our will, it’s about learning to bend with it, to take the hits without letting them hollow us out. Those who fight the tide break under it. Those who learn to move with it might just find a way to laugh as they’re carried along.

This is not submission, it’s strategy. It’s the difference between a fighter who stiffens at every blow and one who moves with the hit, rolling the force away instead of absorbing it head on. Those who harden themselves against life’s chaos might think they’re tough, but they shatter just the same. It’s the ones who learn to adapt, to let go of the illusion of control, who endure. The world is not something to be conquered, it’s something to be understood and navigated.

And yet, adaptation doesn’t mean apathy. It doesn’t mean resignation. It means choosing where to place your energy, knowing that fighting against the inevitable is a waste, but fighting for the things that truly matter, now that is a battle worth waging. You don’t fight to control the tide; you fight to stay afloat. You don’t demand the universe bend to your will; you carve out meaning in its indifference. That’s where true power lies.

So I refuse to let bitterness win. Not by ignoring the frustrations, but by refusing to let them steal my last bits of joy. The world is indifferent to our struggles, it doesn’t care if we suffer, rage, or despair. But in accepting that indifference, we take back control. We make our own meaning. Our own beauty. We remind ourselves that all things slip away, no matter how tightly we grip them.

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“He is most powerful who has power over himself.” - Seneca⁵

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The Choice That Defines Us

And in the end, it’s action that defines us. Not the stories we tell ourselves, not the self pity or the complaints, but what we do in response to it all. We reclaim joy not through waiting, but through choice. The choice to laugh instead of sneer, to find humor in absurdity instead of despair in futility.

Maybe the real trick isn’t in fighting time or bitterness, but in learning to dance with both. The choice is ours, to fight against reality, exhausting ourselves in an unwinnable struggle, or to embrace the absurdity with a knowing grin, adapting instead of resisting. There’s no victory in waging war against inevitabilities, no triumph in demanding fairness from an indifferent universe. The more we resist what cannot be controlled, the deeper we sink into frustration. But those who learn to pivot, to let go of expectations and meet absurdity on its own terms, find a strange kind of freedom. They move through life like a river finding its course, not by forcing a path, but by flowing around obstacles, shaping them over time. Adaptation isn’t surrender; it’s mastery of survival, an art refined through struggle and acceptance alike.

Some are born to fight, and some are not. But fighting isn’t always about chaos or violence. It’s about resilience. Some fight because they must, because life never gave them another option. Others fight because they refuse to surrender to bitterness, to the slow death of complacency. Not everyone is built for the struggle, but those who are know that surrender isn’t an option: not to pain, not to regret, not to the slow erosion of self.

For those who have fought, in whatever capacity, the battle never really ends. The chaos shifts, no longer against enemies in the field, but against the creeping weight of time, the quiet erosion of spirit. The enemy becomes the stagnation, the death of purpose, the temptation to fade into irrelevance. Those who have been shaped by struggle understand that the fight isn’t just about survival; it’s about remaining whole despite the cost.

So let the ‘ankle biters’ come. Let the printer jam, let the coffee spill, let the damn customer service robot drone on. Let it all happen. And let your laughter be louder than your curses. Because if the world insists on being absurd, the best thing we can do is laugh in its face, and fight, not for victory, but simply to keep going.

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“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” - Viktor E. Frankl⁶

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1. Davy, H. (1858). Fragmentary remains, literary and scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy (J. Davy, Ed.). Churchill. (Original work published 1858)

2. Ali, M., & Durham, R. (1975). The greatest: My own story. Random House.

3. Angelou, M. (1981). The heart of a woman. Random House.

4. Dickens, C. (2003). The cricket on the hearth: A fairy tale of home. Dover Publications. (Original work published 1845)

5. Seneca, L. A. (1917). Moral letters to Lucilius (R. M. Gummere, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published ca. 65 CE)

6. Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)