Like their parents before them, my parents owned a little store as I was growing up - antiques and collectibles and whatnot - and after hours, as my father counted down the register, I'd sit on the floor and play with some random scrap while he told me about his life. I've heard a thousand stories if I've heard one, some of them still don't make sense while others have long since been forgotten, but like this one, I'm sure they're all just waiting for the right time.

I was fifteen, and like now it was the end of summer. I remember the heat more than anything because I had to walk everywhere I wanted to go. The day was as muggy as they'd all been that August, and sitting on the 1975 brown Berber carpet against the wall, I twisted a paperclip until it broke into halves. My father talked about his school and the old neighborhood and how his dad taught him to box in the basement in broken English, and having heard these stories at least 20 times, I wafted in and out of attention while dimpling my fingertips with the newly broken edge of the metal. But when he said he walked to football practice because he didn't have a car and it was hot and July and as humid as what all magnificent Hell would hope to be, I looked up.

The story started in high school and wound up in his twenties. It was Cicero, Illinois in the sixties, and it was spring training call outs for the Chicago Bears. At 6'1" and 260 lbs, my father walked to and from the field everyday and worked at night hoping to make the cut. They put him on a line and told him to push through, and he did, for months, but one day someone pushed back a little harder and he fell. His ankle broke in several places, and when he came back to the line months later he told me he was afraid.

"I hadn't been afraid up until this point because I didn't know what it was like to fall so hard. I didn't know how it would feel, so I had nothing to keep guarded, and I was just never the same after that. Couldn't hit because I was too afraid of getting hit I guess... but I love the game... I love the game."

I know it took him years to understand this and make peace and move on. I know every once in a while he has to wonder what if - last year's Superbowl, what if - I know because I would. But I don't want to. I don't want to be afraid to hit because I've been hit and I know, looking back, this is the lesson he meant for me to learn.

I wonder if I listened that day more than most and since then have subconsciously gone out of my way to find myself some lines upon which to stand; my whole life, tackling one big thing after another. Conditioning. But in spite of this, after last year I admit I'm scared. After all this time I finally understand how he felt and, yes, I'm afraid I won't be the same either because now I know what's it's like to come crashing down.

It's hard, coming back, and you're all watching in the stands. But I don't think I can try to hide being afraid and still steady myself enough to step up, so I'll have to let that much go; my pride be damned. I think I have to accept I can't fight this fear because I have 17 days and no promises of a finish line, and it may happen all over again. Anything is possible. But it may not, and my God, if not...

After all this I don't think I have much of a choice, knowing what I know. I suppose in the face of no guarantees it seems all we can ever really do is come to the line and give everything, remind ourselves that we eventually heal, and then, well, wait and see.