I used to play a sport I loved. Why did I just... stop?

A man's donkey died. He sat by the road and wept so loudly that travelers stopped to comfort him. "Was it a fine donkey?" they asked. "Terrible," he said. "It bit me, it was slow, it cost me grain I didn't have." "Then why do you weep?" "Because I forgot to say goodbye to it, and now my shoulders don't know what to carry." You stopped playing for a good reason — a job, a baby, a knee, a move across town. Good reasons are still endings. You filed it under "practical" and never filed it under "loss," so it sits in you unfinished, like a letter you meant to send. Here is the part people miss when they do this alone: a body that once moved with other bodies — teammates, rivals, a regular Tuesday match — does not just miss the sport. It misses being *known* in motion. That is harder to mourn solo, and much easier with the very people who remember you moving.