Today’s press conference with Lionel Messi is going to be one of the most emotional moments in FC Barcelona history. The greatest player is Barça’s history is saying goodbye. The greatest footballer of all-time is saying goodbye. And Culers aren’t ready.
Messi’s unparalleled excellence is an outcome of the fact that even his bad days are irresistibly helpful to lift your lousy mood. The hassle, the heartbreaks, the disappointments, and everything else that life has to offer comes to a sheer silence. A state of calm overcomes the noise of resonating pains when Messi, instead of breaking another record, happily gives the goal to Griezmann to score.
The best escape to reality over the past two years was watching Messi selflessly giving every bit of his being to FC Barcelona. What should I call him; Euphoria? Ecstasy? Utmost bliss? Or more simply, a mentor?
He stitched my open wounds occurred due to always being on the giving end. He made me recognize how the giving hand is always bigger than the one receiving it. He taught me how being selfless is not a crime. He heals, he cures, and he mends in every way possible. The limitlessness of his healing power is above and beyond all the praise and appreciation.
This 20-year marriage left many bitter lessons of loving without expecting. Still, more significantly, it showed how your focus could make you the greatest to ever play. Messi never let his focus and commitment to the club go down the tubes regardless of the countless attempts by management and teammates to let him down. His career at Barcelona is the epitome of grace by showing how loving someone unconditionally and giving them everything you possibly can without getting it reciprocated, in the same manner, is something one should cherish instead of being ashamed of.
All of it was as blithesome as it can get until Leo’s parsimonious partner finally took a selfish decision. I cannot love the club the same way anymore, the decision might favor the club, but there’s always a way when there’s love. And FC Barcelona miserably failed to honor that love. The love for Lionel Messi SHOULD be more prominent than all the constraints and hurdles. I believe this is how it ends—every time. I am trying very hard not to romanticize the marriage started on a romantic note and finished like a mediocre Bollywood movie. But how can all your efforts go unnoticed in the spur of a moment? How do people fail to feel the same for you when you tried to become nothing in an attempt to make them feel everything? How can they not recognize the passion, the devotion, the time, the emotional investments? Why does accountability die? Why is acknowledgement just a word in a dictionary? Why are the final decisions one-sided? Why did the love become unrequited when it was unconditional.
This void has changed me as a person and my perspective to see and feel things. Maybe after my heart is broken in the tiniest pieces it possibly can, I am more giving, more passionate, and more devoted because it’s Leo that I am looking up to. It’s the man who made me fall in love with the game and everything else linked to it. It’s Messi who healed my injurious soul and stitched my open wounds. Hence, wherever he goes, whatever he does, I am forever grateful to him with all I am and all I will ever be — Thank You, Messiah.
This was a guest post by Maha Naeem Khan. Give her a follow on Twitter!
