Take a brief moment for some introspection. Reach your cold, trembling hand into your emotional recycle bin and pull out the purple scrap of paper with the words, "Apex of Frank Martin Basketball" on it. Read through it. It's going to be tough, but read every word. Any emotions coming back? I bet I can guess which one.
Happiness.
Remember how purely jubilant you were to watch K-State basketball a few years ago? Every game was like a gift from the Antarctic Santa Claus: a man who spent all year in complete isolation at a research house, formulating plans to make your twice-a-week Christmas the best one ever. Not thinking of anyone else like the satanic North Pole "Santa", but a Santa who was all yours. A Santa who dedicated his life to bringing light and love straight to your doorstep. His only stop of the night. You his only care in the world.
And you loved him...god did you love him. The pure, unadulterated joy that was injected into your soul from his gifts was superlative, the excitement conjugated unmatched in the physical realm in which we all reside.
Suddenly, Antarctic Santa stopped regularly coming to your house. Sure you'd wake up every few weeks and find a box containing a morsel of joy, but it wasn't the same. And slowly the quality of your gifts deteriorated, to the point where the final present you got was an old dial-up modem with hot-pocket grease all over it.
Antarctic Santa was never heard from again after that. You were never given that lustful infusion of happiness again. And while you wait, you know he's not going to have any sort resurgence for a long time. Regret eats at your soul and your sanguineness has started to melt from the immense heat of constant disappointment.
But yet you hope. God, are you full of hope. You know he's still alive, this Antarctic Santa. You just know it. You can reach into the back of your mind and delve into the depths of your beliefs and pull out handfuls of warm, gooey optimism.
Hold on to that. Antarctic Santa will come back, because his existence is based on belief. The moment you let go of your ideals and expectations, is the moment he ceases to exist.
So we all say together: "Come back Antarctic Santa, we need you more than you know".
