I've been a football fan most of my life. But I can't watch anymore

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published in November 2022. Thomas Lake's views on football have not changed.

On Saturday afternoon, as third-ranked Georgia played top-ranked Tennessee in the game of the year so far in college football, I was not watching.

In past years I would've been on the couch with my brother, eating pizza and wings, bellowing at the television. Instead I got in the minivan with my wife and kids, and we drove to Zoo Atlanta.

We got there a few minutes before kickoff, when a lot of people were leaving. Who goes to the zoo during the Georgia game? We do, as it turns out, along with an Amish family, the women in bonnets, the men in straw hats.

It was a warm and cloudy afternoon, with yellow leaves falling from the pecan trees. A zookeeper told us there are 100,000 muscles and tendons in an elephant's trunk. I texted my brother to say I was sorry.

"I miss you," I wrote. "This is just a thing I'm trying."

There were lions on a rock, all brothers, we were told, and two were asleep, and the third stood at the edge of the rock, and he kept roaring. It was a lonely sound. We walked away but kept hearing that distant, lonely roar.