Just Stick Together

There is a moment in every Lions season when the wheels start to come off, and we’ve pretty much come to that moment, no? Quandre Diggs was sent to the mud, and Darius Slay isn’t happy, and for fuck’s sake, when does this become fun?

This week’s game against the Giants is less about beating them and more about how we take cover from the shitstorm of misery that is about to wash over us, but it’s okay because we’ve been swimming in these shitty waters for a long time now and it’s the only thing we know. At least if we drown, we’ll get to go to hell and burn for eternity.

I am not optimistic about this Lions team and neither are you. That’s okay. We are in this together and we are not like the others. At a certain point you have to know when a thing is finished, when it has reached the end of its life cycle and just needs to be thrown in the trash. Whether it’s your fandom, your marriage, or fuck, even your life, you have to know when something is finished and you have to figure out a way to become something else when it’s all over.

I don’t have any answers for you other than to tell you that I am here and that we are in this thing together, and we’ll get through it. I hope that some day things might be better for my Lions, and I know that I cannot just cut them out of my life because I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. So what do you do when you are just eternally strapped to your own misery? I don’t know. Make a lot of jokes, do some drugs, talk to each other about it.

The Lions can probably beat the Giants this week and get back to something near even, but this is not a sound ship and we all know this. What do we do when the ship is sinking and the band is still playing? Keep calm, and try not to swallow your own tongue and just hope that someone picks you up while you’re floating.

Saquon Barkley is likely to run us into the mud this week, but Daniel Jones is probably in for some pain, and Matthew Stafford is the most adult like thing in the room now, and he’ll probably carry us to a win here as the band plays on and this ship sinks and you have to remember that love is a choice, only it isn’t really, it’s just a damnable thing, and it will fuck you up. But we are not like the others, and we wear scars that prove that we are alive, and we live and we suffer and we die, but it’s okay because I’ve got you and you’ve got me.

Tomorrow will bring something new and you have to make the best of what you can of things in this world which was not meant for you and I. Our job is to just to continue to try to survive here, and carve out little moments for ourselves, things that we can cherish and be proud of, things that matter, if not to ourselves then at least to someone else who sees it and thinks okay, there are others like me.

Life as a fan of these Detroit Lions is a constant struggle to find those moments to hang onto, to love and cherish and bring warmth to our idiot hearts, and they are fleeting but they are very real and we cannot abandon them to save a part of ourselves that was never really alive to begin with. The aching beauty of Barry Sanders career, or the sad song of St. Calvin Johnson are testimonies to these moments, beautiful arcs that we have shared together and will share again as we blunder into an unknowable future. We will have our little laughs, our comradery, and those little moments that remind ourselves that we are not alone and that we are not like the others and that’s okay.

It's already been a weird season, a trying season, and things will get worse before they get better again, but they will get better again, my friend, and when they do, we will know that we went through it together, that we have lived this ridiculous life together, bonded by our love for a football team and for our shared humanity. It will get better than this, and all these scars will look badass.

My first year chronicling what it feels like to be a Lions fan was that 0-16 season which stands as a perfect monument to how bad times can get. In the years since, I have written a lot of wild words, invented a mythological superhero, and found a ton of friends and warm thoughts along the way. I don’t have a lot of supporters or readers, but that’s okay because we are not like the others and we will have each other’s backs, bonded as brothers through a shared pain, a shared knowing of what it feels like to be a fan of the Detroit Lions, of what it feels like to be a human being in this fucked up world.

I love you all, and I thank you for all your kind words and support through these years, and nothing can take away from us this thing that we share together. If the Lions beat the Giants on Sunday I will be happy, but if they don’t, it’s really all okay because I know this ship is sinking and the band keeps playing and that’s just how these things turn out sometimes. We will find a mermaid and have lots of fucked up sex under the sea when it’s all over and we can be glad for it because we have earned it.

Every day is a new exercise in audacious ridicule, spent trying to make sense of the present by putting together the wrecked pieces of the past in the hope that the future can somehow be something different. But don’t give up on me baby, because we have an ocean of time to get through this world together, you and I, and when things get bad we can turn to each other and talk about other stupid goofy things that we love, and when things are good we can help each other to get to where we want to be. I am just a dude who wants to lead his dudes into a world where we can find some sort of happiness for ourselves, and we’ll get there if we just stick together.

Lions 27 Giants 14