That workin' life

 I don't know what's going on in Calvin Ridley's life right now. Neither do you.

That's because what's going on in his life is a personal matter, and that makes it none of our business. This is, of course, heresy in our TikTok/Instagram/Twitter-fied world. Nothing is a personal matter anymore, or so some presume; it's all sustenance for the public maw. And when you are moderately famous, as Calvin Ridley is, that goes double.

Well, to hell with that.

Ridley, the Atlanta Falcons' best wide receiver, is taking a break from wide receiving in the middle of the football season, and not because he's injured or hurting or otherwise incapacitated, at least not physically. What's broken or bruised or nicked up is on the inside.

So he's taking a break for awhile. Released a statement yesterday announcing it, explaining it was a mental health deal. His coaches and teammates and the ownership of the Falcons issued statements of support, and whatever judgment there is on the matter therefore should stop right there.

Of course, this being 2021, it probably won't. And so here is mine, as a member of the Just Rub Some Dirt On It generation: 

Damn. These people sound almost civilized.

Because, listen, my generation grew up in the shadow of the generations of our fathers and their fathers before them, who drilled into us that if you're paid to do a job, you do it, and no lily-livered excuses. So you went to work sick (because that was expected, no matter what the bosses said), and you worked weekends and holidays when the job required you to. And if the bosses were flaming sons of bitches, well ...

That was just life. It sucks, and then you die.

And your mental health?

Hell, that was just feelings. Real men and women didn't have 'em did they?

My judgment on that: Damn, were we stupid.

And also: Damn, did a lot of lives wind up broken on the reef because, unlike Calvin Ridley or Simone Biles or any number of others who've lately rejected the mantra of Just Tough It Out, mental health was something that never entered the conversation.

God knows that was the case when I came up. The mental and emotional state of us deadline grunts was never a consideration when there was a story to break. You broke it even if it broke you. And then you got up the next day and did it again.

It was almost a form of insanity sometimes, I recognize now, nurtured too often by the  belief that ours was as much a calling as a profession. And so there was a particular night when reporters wound up sobbing in the bathroom because they'd been ordered to beat the rival paper's six-month investigative project in a single day. And there was another particular night, early in the wee hours after a party, when I could almost see a colleague unraveling as she talked about a particularly horrific car accident on which she'd reported.

I often joke I still have deadline PTSD dreams, all these years away from newsrooms and pressboxes. But sometimes jokes are just truth tied up in a bow. 

And so Calvin Ridley stepping away at midseason to deal with a mental health issue?

You won't hear me sneering about it.

You'll hear me applauding instead.