It is presumably evidence of a lack of sound mind to superimpose trivialities over apparently significant events, but that's how it is; and of course the major and minor premises are inverted such that the obsessive shudder comes first when the two things are associated.
For your author, then, Barnsley's results are the signpost that I ever existed at all, and they take precedence over everything else:
- 17 January 1998 - Barnsley 1 Crystal Palace 0 (oh, by the way, my father announced yesterday he'd ran away with another woman.)
- 5 December 2009 - Blackpool 1 Barnsley 2 (did I mention that Bluefish left today, and I'll never see her again?)
- 14 September 2010 - Barnsley 5 Leeds United 2 (the first time I've felt anything like normal in four or five months, a turning point of sorts.)
If there is a good thing about an obsession, it is that this surrogate can improve the outlook of an individual instantaneously, without effort from the sufferer. Of course, the reciprocal of this to realise all the effort in the world cannot change a mindset, because the cure is external to the self, and must be awaited patiently.
I did myself an injury when the equalising goal went in on Tuesday night, and lost control of my emotions completely. The experience of stepping outside oneself, with the joy vibrating through my entire body, is how I imagine it must be to ingest a strong recreational drug. Oh, pantheism, at that moment I was in you and of you as the stand shook with delirium.
Now it is painful to even sit down, because the small movements of my arms and hips propagate through my sore right shoulder and bruised ribs, causing my face to screw up in anguish.
Yet a few bruises is a small price to pay if the result is the lifting of this months-old fog for a few days.... a week.... perhaps longer?
Nothing is forever, and there is no significance or importance to be attached to anything. When contemplated too intensely, everything floats away like a flourescent, airy balloon.... mathematics, love, passion, reading, cats, language, football, history, science, politics, art, sleep, beauty, goodness, aesthetics, romance, knowledge, philosophy, religion, life, death, the moon, the stars.
At least, though, the obsessive can leave his calling card on each of them: hello, insignificant mathematics. Your greatest gift was to teach me that five exceeds two. Greetings, downcast moon - I can't remember whether or not you were shining as the fifth goal went in.
I am a dull individual, and what I have to say is boring. For now, though, I'll take that tedium as an improvement on much of the year thus far, and hold out hope that I'll be merely tedious tomorrow instead of tedious and unbearably unhappy.
