Sport changes your definition of normal.
Slowly.
So slowly, in fact, that you usually do not notice it happening.
Until one day you hear yourself saying something completely absurd with a straight face.
“I only slept five hours, but it’s fine.”
“I have three pairs of shoes with me because obviously they all do different things.”
“No, I can’t eat now. I have to eat in forty minutes.”
“It’s not really raining.”
It is raining horizontally.
But apparently this no longer counts.
That is what sport does.
It introduces you to a collection of habits, objects, schedules and tiny obsessions that would look mildly concerning in any other context.
And then makes all of them feel perfectly reasonable.
You start waking up at hours normally associated with airports and poor life choices.
You learn that 6:30 can somehow qualify as “not that early.”
You stop thinking it is strange to have completed an entire morning before other people have decided what they want for breakfast.
Your bag becomes a parallel universe.
There are shoes.
More shoes.
Something you forgot you owned.
Tape.
Snacks.
A charger that fits nothing currently in the bag.
A bottle that has definitely been washed.
Probably.
And at least one mysterious object that seems essential even though you cannot remember the last time you used it.
You become extremely specific about things you once had no opinion about.
Surfaces.
Socks.
Grip.
Temperature.
Fabric.
The exact moment at which a banana becomes too ripe to be acceptable before training.
And weather.
Oh, weather.
Normal people look outside.
Athletes conduct an investigation.
Temperature?
Wind?
Wind direction?
Humidity?
Was it raining two hours ago?
Will it rain later?
How wet is “wet”?
What exactly does 40 percent chance of rain mean?
Suddenly you are one barometric chart away from applying for a job in meteorology.
Food becomes equally strange.
Not necessarily complicated.
Just logistical.
You stop asking only, “Am I hungry?”
There are now supplementary questions.
What am I doing later?
How long do I have?
Can I eat this now?
Will I regret this in an hour?
Is there coffee?
That last question remains relevant in almost every situation.
Then there is changing clothes.
Sport teaches you that almost anywhere can become a changing room if your standards are flexible enough.
Cars.
Stables.
Parking areas.
Bathrooms of questionable dimensions.
Behind an open door while maintaining an impressive level of confidence that nobody can see you.
Privacy becomes less of an architectural concept and more of an optimistic attitude.
You also develop an extraordinary tolerance for looking ridiculous.
This may actually be one of sport’s greatest gifts.
Strange stretches.
Elastic bands attached to unexpected places.
Walking sideways for no apparent reason.
Standing on one leg while moving the other in a direction nature did not anticipate.
Wearing combinations of clothing that would require a lengthy explanation outside the sporting environment.
Nobody asks.
Everybody understands.
Because they are probably doing something equally strange.
And somehow, amidst all this, there are the rituals.
Not necessarily superstitions.
Just the little things you do because that is how you do them.
The order.
The preparation.
Where something goes.
What you check twice even though you already checked it once.
The object that must absolutely be in the bag despite the statistical evidence suggesting you will never need it.
Sport creates its own tiny universe of logic.
Inside it, everything makes sense.
Outside it?
Perhaps less so.
Which is why I occasionally enjoy imagining what all of this must look like to someone who does not live in that universe.
You wake up before sunrise voluntarily.
Carry several versions of essentially the same item.
Become personally offended by unsuitable socks.
Discuss the weather with the intensity of an emergency meeting.
Eat according to what your body will be doing three hours from now.
And spend a surprising percentage of your life either getting ready, changing, washing something, drying something, or looking for the thing you were absolutely certain you had packed.
And then you do it again the next day.
Voluntarily.
The funny thing is, I would not really want it any other way.
Because somewhere along the way, these strange little things stop feeling like inconveniences.
They become part of the rhythm.
Part of the experience.
Part of a life built around doing things rather than simply watching them.
Maybe sport does not make us normal.
Maybe it gives us a completely different definition of normal.
And personally, I think ours is much more entertaining.
Silvia
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