odder

She decided recently that she liked softball.
And this... she remarked, was very odd, because softball held for her a particular distaste that went far beyond rational, and wallowed right down there with the tantrum-inducing injustices of her childhood.
Once, in the sixth grade, she had participated in a game against the teachers. It might have been a field day. It might have been very near the last day - ever - of elementary school. All she remembered now was the specific location on the playground where the field was located, and the uneasiness the memory brought up.
She would have told you that she slid... into a base. She remembers it as home plate, but it probably wasn't. She will tell you that she did not do it well, and that it felt awkward and hurt her. She will tell you that she wore the smallest most delicate hoop earrings and that the hoop pulled and the ear tore. She will tell you that it wasn't until after college that she'd had a new hole pierced in that ear so that the earrings would sit at the proper height and the torn lobe would not rip through completely.
She added to this visceral and gut-tightening dislike for softball the red-neck tendencies of its adult participants and she began to lose all semblance of intellectual thought. Blackness did, in fact, creep into her vision. Muscles in her jaw tightened. She. Hated. Softball.
And yet, oddly, she had covered it as a reporter with expertise and aplomb. Back in the day. The training to separate yourself from your subject had worked. And she had handled herself nicely.
Reporting long behind her, she mainly avoided the subject of softball these days... and all invitations to play.
In fact, she had never played again.
What she'd learned to like about softball was its universality and usefulness at the metaphorical level.
Odd, she knew, but then it didn't matter to her if anyone else understood. Now, when she said she liked softball, there was a glint in her eye and a smirk in her heart.
And it felt good to have a secret all her own, one that made people wonder at her oddness and the happiness she refused to share.
Yes.... she decided recently that she liked the game...
And if you ask her what she's thinking, she's likely to say, "play ball!"