There hasn’t been a sports story in the last few years that made me madder than the Brett Favre retire or play fiasco.  I thought it was pretty black and white as to whether it was time to pack it in or not but as I’m trying to make those decisions myself I’ve realized how tough it is.

Granted, I’m not a pro athlete and I’m only 36, but I’ve really struggled as of late trying to make this decision.  I’m not planning on retiring from all the sports that I play but am close to being done with some.

The reason why I’ve had these thoughts recently is because of how I feel when I’m done playing each time.  I hurt for days and days.  My back and shoulders and neck drive me crazy to the point where I can’t sleep.  That not a fun feeling to have.  Maybe if I had an ice bath in my house that wouldn’t be a problem but I’m not that lucky.  As bad as the post-game nights are the next day is worse.  When I try to get out of bed my legs just don’t seem to work.  That’s not good when you consider that I have to walk around for work.  That really hinders the speed with which I do things.

Now I know some of you are thinking that I shouldn’t be this broken down at my age but there are some very good reasons for it.  I’ve played sports for as long as I can remember and it’s usually on a daily basis.  During my 20’s and early 30’s I played upwards of three games a day.  And I just never missed.  I played with sprained ankles and bad knees and broken wrists and even what I found out later was a fractured vertebra in my back.  When you never give yourself time to heal your body just breaks down faster.  You compensate for your injuries by using other things and then you get hurt more.

That happened to me all the time.  I would try to play on a bad ankle and cause myself knee and hip issues.  That was never a good plan and I’m really paying for it now.

So that’s where the issue of when to hang it up comes into play.  I still love to play but I’m not as good as I used to be, NOT EVEN CLOSE.  There isn’t much that is more frustrating than trying to do something that you used to be great, at a lower level.  It really hurts your confidence when your skill level falls off.  Now it’s not like my skills are completely gone.  I still have nights when my form is up to par with my younger days, but that seems to happen much less often now.

When those nights do happen I appreciate them much more for what they are.  I used to take them for granted.  Scoring thirty in a basketball game was common place and I didn’t think twice about how good it felt or what it took for me to do that.  The toll it took on my body didn’t bother me much and I was willing to fight through it for the next 30 or 40 point night because they happened much more frequently.

I would love to get back to that point but I don’t really know if my body or my pride will allow that to happen.  I know that if I got back to a good playing weight that I wouldn’t have the issues that I am having now but I’m not sure I’m willing to dedicate myself to putting in that kind of effort to make it happen.

I always said growing up that it was my goal to able to play sports with my kids when they became adults but I have a hard time seeing that happening at this point.  They youngest I will be is my mid 50’s before I have an 18 year old to play alongside.  At the same time I still want to be able to walk when I get older and even move around without pain.  It’s a tough decision in deciding which one is more important to me.

To this point I’ve decided to push on and continue to play even with the current consequences I am facing.  I just love the rush of competition and the feeling of doing something great if even for just a moment and I’m not willing to give that up just yet.