I have read that in times of trauma, the body shuts off the brain to spare it the details. This was true for me: When Vance Parker ran a red light and T-boned my station wagon back in 2008, I remember a sudden, inexplicable stop and then waking to find myself surrounded by firefighters. Even with a concussion, I surmised that I had been in a traffic accident, but other than seeing the front end of my car rearranged in Picasso-like fashion, I had no idea of exactly what happened. That feeling has returned to me recently, for when people ask me about how I am faring from the events of Monday, January 8, I am utterly puzzled. What events? I respond. They usually tell me — or I finally realize —  that they mean the College Football Playoff Series National Championship Brought to You by AT&T and Dr. Pepper.

Ah, yes. The game where the Georgia Bulldogs lost in overtime.

That one.

I have memories of the evening: the wearing of the lucky jersey, the celebration with friends. I think that a sausage cheese dip was involved (which is always a safe guess when football monopolizes the television). There was a brief and shining hope that the country’s most beleaguered college football fan base — the Bulldawg Nation — would win a championship game for the first time since 1980. I even recall a passing moment of forgiveness for Ray Goff, Moultrie’s meager contribution to the pantheon of Georgia head coaches, and a moment of sadness for Mark Richt, the patron saint of Georgia, an all-around nice guy, and the recruiter of many of the young men on the field.

But I distinctly remember the final play in overtime, a touchdown catch by an Alabama receiver to win the ball game, and the feeling that all of the air had been sucked out of the room.

The game made me think about penalties, and how in SEC games,  three referees stand by in Birmingham to review the play and determine whether the ruling on the field stands.  I cannot help but think that this service would be really handy in marriage, to have detached observers review footage showing various angles of the play. Did Amy Lee overreact? Let’s check the tape, Chris. Then a neutral hand would toss in the ball, direct field position, and the game would resume as before, no hard feelings. I have tried lately to ask myself this question — Would I rather be happy or right? — with the understanding that I might not really be right at all. When I voluntarily elect happy, I am never disappointed, and I feel like my very own self-contained Birmingham review.

There were a number of bad and missed calls in the game, most of which went against Georgia. In fact, I have read only one article about the game, and that was press coverage about those calls. (I could recite some of the bad calls here, but if you are a Georgia fan, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are, heaven forbid, an Alabama fan, you also know exactly what I am talking about.) As I read that reporting, it struck me that bad calls were just a part of life. It was easier to let it go — although with that dig against Alabama fans, I wonder if I actually succeeded.

I thought about the players themselves, and particularly those seniors who would almost certainly go on to the NFL. Would football ever again be as simple for them as it was this season?  They would trade professors for agents, dining halls for personal chefs, a roommate for an entourage. They would have mortgages, car payments, financial responsibilities. If their signing bonuses were enough, they would have people to negotiate and handle these things, but at the end of the day, the pads of adulthood would rest firmly on their shoulders. They would grow up.

At dinner the other night, our daughter announced that she really did not want to get old. I told her that the other option was not terribly appealing, and I asked her what she meant. The 12 year-old dog, our very own confused and elderly tyrant, has made growing old look very hard indeed. Apparently from the human end, there have been a few too many complaints about arthritis, middle-aged weight gain, diminished vision, fickle hearing. There was an inelegant ascent from the floor a few months ago that drove me to yoga class, where one spends an hour doing nothing but getting up and down off the floor. And the word “eczema” has suddenly and scratchily entered our lives, the subject of the dinner conversation that led to her remark.

I have done her a disservice, for bad knees and all, there is one word that springs to mind at this time of my life: Freedom. The crippling self-doubt of the last three decades was a terrible way to start my day. I find now that I much prefer eggs and toast. I feel bold. I feel comfortable in my wrinkled skin.

I am doing something now that I never thought I would do, but I was inspired by an essay — “My Year of No Shopping,” — by Ann Patchett, one of my favorite writers. This was the line that got me: Once I could see what I already had, and what actually mattered, I was left with a feeling that was somewhere between sickened and humbled. Ann (can I call her Ann?) set up her own set of arbitrary rules: Books were fine. Shoes, purses, and clothes were not.

I have similar rules. Books and art supplies are necessities, and not subject to the embargo. Shoes, purses, clothing are. I will sew through my fabric, and I will knit the yarn that I have. If I have your address, and you find a lumpy package in the mail or by your front door, it is from me. I have been doing this now for a few weeks, and the world continues to turn on its axis. It has been an easy rule to follow. No means no.

Toilet paper and food have made the cut, so that is why Chris and I found ourselves standing in Publix on Saturday afternoon. We are there frequently, for he is a really good cook, and one of the hallmarks of our marriage is that I am the public face of the corporation. As I wait in line and chat with all of the cashiers, he flips through magazines. I am extroverted, and I talk to everyone. (I do this so much that my children have a name for it: mom making friends.) The Publix employees all sort of know me, and I sort of know all of them, including the two teen-aged girls that rang up my order on Saturday.

The bagger said, “You got your hair cut, right?” And I told her that I had, to chop off the red as the grey grew down. She liked it, she said, even the color, and the cashier told me that I had hair like hers. I looked at her, and I saw what she meant: The first six inches of hair sprouting from her scalp were grey, and the last six inches were black. The cashier told me that I was lucky, because it cost her a fortune to get hers to look just like that.

I let her know that it had cost me a lot to get mine to look like that too: Fifty years, to be exact. She laughed, and I told her to wait, that all good things would come her way in time.

Some of my best — and most poorly received — parenting advice has been given in sports metaphors, where I needed only a whistle, a clipboard, and tube socks to make the moment complete. (By the way, those three things are included on the no-spending list.) Chris never speaks in sports metaphors — ever — so imagine my surprise when, apropos of nothing, he said, “Life is like a football game. You think you have plenty of time to make one more play, and then it’s suddenly over.”

He had heard it from a friend, and this little chestnut had flitted in and out of his mind until it erupted right there in the Publix parking lot.

And that is the trick: Keep making the plays. Of all of the things that the game two weeks ago taught me, I remember that the most. Before the game, did I think that Georgia would make a respectable showing against Alabama, the unofficial 33rd team of the NFL? I had my doubts. That is a school where the very presence of its head coach, Nick Saban, has raised academic standards. (Don’t believe me? Read this.) Did I ever think that Georgia’s losing the game at the last moment would not bother me too much at all? No. While I was disappointed at the outcome, the team played so hard and persevered through a physical game with a bruising opponent. They ran when they were tired. They blocked when they were battered. If they had one more play, they would have won, but it was suddenly over.

The course of life is not dictated by wearing lucky jerseys. It is the hard work and the scramble, the willingness to change up the tactics, the weathering of bad calls, the joy of the game. It is the offsetting of a barely missed field goal with the breathtaking Hail Mary. It is the sheer kookiness of lining up in Wild Dawg formation just to see what happens. It is the irrevocable commandment to attack the day.

ALC