I tried for a number of weeks to write something eloquent about the massacre that was Crawford versus Spence.

The problem is that upon re-watching it appears Spence was ambushed. Like no one told him there was going to be a fight. Like no one told him Terence Crawford is a cruel and vindictive and awful man who seeks not only submission from but humiliation of his opposition. Crawford fights in such a way that should you find yourself rooting for the opponent it feels like you personally are being beaten halfway dead. I see no scenario in which fighting Terence Crawford becomes a good idea.

***

Sometime in 2018 I was wandering around the fine city of Halifax. I had been drinking.

I had done my drinking in a hotel bar. Hotel bars are the best bars because they exist outside of time and space. Reality inside a hotel bar is distorted and distinctly different from anything on the outside.

I was sitting and drinking and eating fried halibut while talking to a very nice bartender. I never got her name. She had light hair and wore that classic hotel staff get up. White shirt, black vest. You've seen it. She talked to me all evening. Or, I talked to her and she was very polite about the imposition. After some time I tipped her and thanked her with an apology and then made my way to a different hotel where those of us who had the foresight to book hotels more than three days in advance were staying.

I was working for a bank at that time. I still work for a bank, just a different one. I was so hopelessly lost and desperately hungry for something more. My life had stalled out in my mid twenties and nothing seemed to want to go my way. This is how you end up wandering around Halifax after you've been drinking.

I chatted with the other new hires. I chatted with the staff at this foreign hotel. I smoked cigarettes on the stairs by the maintenance bay. I was miserable and alone and I did not even have the eyes to see it. I was isolated from all that was. I was walled off from all that could be.

If you're wondering why I gave up this writing silliness, here's my best explanation.

***

I used to write a lot. I thought it was because I had a lot to say but I was not quite right. I had no one to say it to. Then I met her. Then I stopped wandering around the city and I stopped writing. It took a while. It took some years.

You think when you're younger that your person will bring out all these wonderful qualities in you. That you will become better, somehow. There are changes. I got myself healthy and in therapy but I am no different now than I was then. I have been taught to be comfortable in this skin. To be okay with the down times.

I learned this too late in life but to be a man in love is to be simultaneously vulnerable and indestructible. No one on this earth could ever hurt me. I fear nothing and no one.

But her. She can cut me in half with her brown eyes. Her mouth open just a touch when she smiles. I have been defeated and I have been saved and I have nothing more to say to anyone who is not her.

***

I've missed you guys. I have three children now and no longer spend my time fretting about who the seventh best welterweight is. I'll try to come back. But they've got a sturdy hold on me.