The Playpen

The economy is hitting us pretty hard. Let’s face it, it’s hitting everyone pretty hard. Cost of living in Los Angeles has seen a very dramatic increase over the last three years and wages have either remained stagnant, decreased, or people have lost their jobs altogether. All of this, coupled with the weight of being completely responsible for the lives to two children has been causing me a great deal of stress lately. As a friend so aptly put it the other day, “I’m doing everything I can to succeed, but I still feel like I am just waiting for things to turn around,” and I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

Because I have an amazing wife, the second Aline returned home from her girls outing a while ago, she began pushing me to get out with a friend of mine next. Granted, that may be in part because she was anxious to go out again, but it didn’t matter because she was sweet, supportive and patient and insisted that I have a good time, and I thank her for that. I took her up on her offer and, yesterday, enjoyed a round of golf with one of my best buddies of 32 years.

I don’t have any particularly funny stories to tell, or any deep, emotional discoveries to talk about. What I can say is that I learned, after I returned home, how much I needed a day like that. The weather was absolutely beautiful; it was one of those days where I actually admit to myself that there are things I still love about Los Angeles. There was cold beer, a lot of laughing, cigars and conversation. And it was the conversation, I think, that I found to be the most refreshing. For some reason I expected our entire round to be dominated with talk of the economy, poor investments, rising costs of living, loss of bonuses and the like; I believe my buddy’s financial situation to be very similar to my own. Surprisingly, aside from some light small talk, it barely even came up. It’s almost as if, sometime after I dunked my first ball into the lake on the fairway of the third hole and we had a good laugh, we both realized that this wasn’t about those things. It was about escaping them. And it worked.

The entire day we just joked, relaxed, hacked away and let the sun shine lazily down on us as the breeze blew the smell of fresh cut grass under our noses. It was more therapeutic than I ever imagined it would be; god’s prescription for what ailed us both, I suppose.

My friend and I used to be pretty damn good golfers, believe it or not, back in the days before children and mortgages. Back when we had the time to spend hours and hours on a course, honing our skills. Yesterday, though, we hit balls into lakes, off trees, into sand traps and cart paths, over fences and even into other golfers. But you know what? I think it was the best game of golf I have ever played.

-Matt

We have some cool baby golf-inspired clothes at our online boutique, RedSparks. Play through and check it out!

1. Kori Says:
   November 16th, 2009 at 3:20 pm

   This is music to my ears. yahoo!
   Kori´s last blog ..A Year Ago Yesterday

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2. Carl Spackler Says:
   November 16th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

   I’ll slack you off, you fuzzy little foreigner

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