Eight Days Is A Lifetime

You don't see much of the sun in Michigan this time of year. It's a big thing but one of those things you learn to live without, knowing deep down that the world will turn enough to bring it back come spring and summer. Those who live there learn to forge an emotional armor against the gray malaise. A stoic minimalism where the slivers of light can be absorbed and appreciated for all their worth. Or at least that's something that's been passed down through my family, where generations have suffered through decades of nothingness in the form of a professional football team.

The Detroit Lions have been something of a ghost — an almost non-entity rattling around somewhere in the attic making noise for a few Sundays a year but never enough for anyone to go up there and do something about it or really care at all. Their spirit was a guest in our homes in the way a cousin who just can't get his shit together is: crashing on the couch from time to time and showing brief signs of life before falling into disarray and not to be counted on to ever deliver against resistance.

It's cloudy and charcoal again out the window this morning but yesterday the sun turned the floorboards in our living room into two-toned splendor and produced a glare on the television, which was once again blaring at a volume it never reaches in front of a room of nerves, optimism, and ultimately, a new type of joy you can't understand until it becomes real. A franchise that rationed out one playoff win over 66 years now has two in eight days thanks to a thunderous Ford Field and a roster remade and reborn.

The Lions will play in the NFC Championship Game.

The Lions will play in the NFC Championship Game.

We keep saying it, emphasizing a different word every time to listen to how it sounds and giggle at the different meanings. It doesn't feel real because who could ever sanely envision a time it would be real? It doesn't feel real because this has all happened so fast and it feels like we forgot to do some safety checks before trying to launch into the true unknown of a Super Bowl berth or — God, can you even imagine — winning the whole damn thing?

People keep asking me how it feels. Like we did for Boston Red Sox fans or Chicago Cubs fans as they moved toward exorcizing all their demons. To be clear, a world-class sports curse has already been broken in Detroit. This may ultimately be the high-water mark because the 49ers will be no joke in San Francisco and either AFC team will be similarly favored over Dan Campbell's crew. But it was a different kind of vexing and haunting than those two because they were about winning it all and the Lions' eternal struggle has only been to have a reason to exist.

So I'll tell you how it feels.

At some point during a commercial yesterday, perhaps when it was 17-10 Lions, I said to my wife: "See, this feels nice. The whole damn family sitting around watching the local sports team in the big game. This is the monoculture we miss." If you're asking, yes, we did just go through a bit of a midlife crisis in concert with turning 40. The point still stands.

It feels so quaint and pure that everyone on our cul-de-sac is watching the Lions. Hell, it's hard to think of anything feeling better because it would have been such a ridiculous proposition at any time over the past three-plus decades. Neighbors feel more connected to each other. There's real togetherness in the macro but also the micro. All of us have had to figure out just what it is we need to do to make sure we're with the right people to watch the enormous games. Those viewing parties have been emotional in a way other holiday celebrations and mournings are not. It's rich and it's deep and it honestly makes the soul feel so good to have something mean literally everything and literally nothing at the same time.

More than anything, though, it feels like a celebration of being alive. As Jared Goff went about the business of melting the final bit of clock last week against the Los Angeles Rams, NBC cameras caught a fan moved to happy tears. Local news tracked him down and got the full story, which is beautiful.

The best things are bittersweet and right now is no different. We're in an impossible dream and the better angels of our nature are moving us to want to share it with as many people as possible. Still, every single Lions fan who has lived to see this cares for someone who did not. Someone else said fans are carrying those memories in their pocket, thinking about and really processing how much those who have passed on would have loved to see this. If you really want to know — no bullshit — what this all feels like, then it feels like a celebration of being alive. And being with those you care about. Or care about you enough to share some secondhand happiness because hell yes you deserve it.

Life is a gift but it's also hard and sad and feels pointless at times. Long winters and failure combine to create loneliness. You blink and 33 years pass. You get older and have kids of your own. You are now your parents and your parents need a little help negotiating icy steps on the way in to watch the game. You don't feel the feelings all the time and you don't appreciate both the good and bad ones enough.

Until something magical like this happens to overwhelm you with how much it makes you and everyone else feel alive. In this specific arena, for the very first time.

Ride it for all it's worth.