This year for Oliver’s birthday I promised we’d see the Mariners. We didn’t make it to a regular season game. Instead, last Saturday I drove to Seattle to watch the Mariners’ first division championship series game in 24 years.
Our tickets cost exactly as much as each of the Broadway shows I’m seeing on the way to my Yale Law School reunion later this month. On the drive south we stopped at Alderwood Mall so Oliver could buy an unconscionably expensive Cal Raleigh jersey. After finding street parking on Capitol Hill, we took the light rail to T-Mobile Park. I ate a hot dog at the ballpark, then Molly Moon ice cream on the way back to the car. Detroit won 3-2 in extra innings. We got home at midnight.
I would be telling a slightly different story if the Mariners had won. But despite the disappointing final score, I had an amazing day.
The first time I saw a Major League Baseball game I sat in the owner’s box at the old Kingdome. I was spending my last summer of law school working at the Seattle law firm that represented the baseball team. Mariners’ Night was one of several recruiting boondoggles the firm used to lure summer associates into accepting jobs after graduation. It was like watching professional athletes play in your living room.
I never became a big baseball fan, but during my years in Seattle I took advantage of other opportunities to see the Mariners. I usually sat in some law firm’s less glamorous skybox, or in infield seats with a good view. Eventually I brought my children. One year Oliver and I went to a classmate’s birthday party in his family’s season-ticket-holder box. And when Seattle Men’s Chorus sang the national anthem at Safeco Field, I bought two extra tickets to the game so I could bring along my father and my son.
I moved to Bellingham a decade ago to take what I thought was my dream job as chief legal counsel to Washington’s third largest university. Unfortunately, then-Attorney General (now Governor) Bob Ferguson had created a homophobic and abusive workplace. My co-workers’ conduct triggered debilitating physical and mental symptoms.
My doctor promptly diagnosed me with complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Rather than resulting from a single traumatic event, C-PTSD is caused by an ongoing pattern of traumatic experiences, such as sexual abuse or childhood neglect. In my case, the original PTSD symptoms were the result of growing up in a Mormon culture that denied the existence of LGBT people. Later, my symptoms were amplified by the legal system’s refusal to acknowledge I have PTSD. Even today, Bob Ferguson’s lieutenants publicly insist that I am faking a disability.
At the end of 2023, I made a list of that year’s ten most triggering experiences. The worst event occurred while I was waiting in the veterinary Emergency Room with a seriously wounded Bear, while I happened to receive notification of a particularly dishonest ruling by a lazy judge. Most of the other triggering events that year involved misconduct by the State’s lawyers. But one outlier on the list stood out: I had a complete meltdown while playing a board game at my parents’ house. I thought I’d caught my son cheating.
With my healthcare providers’ help, I’ve learned how to tease out the relationship between past traumas and present triggers. For example, after my Family Game Night meltdown I remembered the only time in my life when I hit someone. I was a freshman in the Honors Program dorm at Brigham Young University. While playing a boardgame involving the War of the Roses, I became convinced one of my floormates had cheated.
For various reasons, I grew up without becoming properly socialized to deal with competition in a healthy way. I never learned proper boundaries. Instead, I became a sore loser and worse winner. I treated every competition as either meaningless or a matter of life and death.
I’ve learned to live with my disability, slowly finding healthy boundaries. Nowadays I can help clients in their contentious family law litigation matters without losing my own perspective on life. And I can play or watch intense games and enjoy the experience – win or lose.
I’ve seen a lot more plays than baseball games. So have my children. When I was a lawyer in Seattle I had season ticket subscriptions at multiple local theaters. I often found it easier to take one of the kids instead of getting a real date.
The Christmas before covid, my mother bought tickets to the Broadway tour of Dear Evan Hansen for my daughter, nephew, and me. When we got to the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Eleanor said “Papa, I’ve never sat in the balcony for a play before.”
Oliver chose our seats to last weekend’s Mariners game. When we got to T-Mobile Park, I realized that in all the professional baseball games I’ve seen, I’d never sat behind the outfield before. I loved our seats – it turns out a baseball game is more interesting when you’re looking toward the batter. Maybe someday I’ll learn to be a great parent without being such a terrible snob.
