Thirteen should be reserved for sleepovers where you stay up all night wrestling and playing videogames with your friends. Teaching each other curse words that you heard you Uncle John say when he stubbed his toe and spilled his Bloody Mary on the carpet in the living room. Your parents pick you up in the morning, ruffled hair and red eyes, knowing that you’ll fall asleep shortly after Sunday night’s meatloaf.

Thirteen is about betting your best friend that he can’t finish a cherry Slurpee in one pull without getting brain freeze. Racing your siblings up the driveway to call “dibs” on the remote control for the afternoon. You frequently tell your parents that you don’t want to do your chores but for some reason if they tell you they’ll time you it’s incentive enough to get the job done.

Thirteen is slamming the minivan door shut and sprinting to the soccer field, shin guards already on and shoes untied. It’s trying to nutmeg your friends for bragging rights and teasing them for holding hands at the movie theatre.

Thirteen should have a caveat in Webster’s Dictionary and the AP Style Guide that the forbids the terms “heavy hearts”, “deeply saddened” and “heart failure” to be utilized.

Thirteen is a lightness of being.

Tuesday morning the hard wood floors were chilly to the touch. The crisp spring air crept in through an open window and the sun began to kiss the Pacific Ocean like a doting parent.

Doug and Nikki Mark went to wake up their 13-year-old son, Tommy. He’d be late to school, had soccer practice in the afternoon, friends to meet, goals to chase, fruit snacks to trade, chances to take, love to make and a life to live.

Thirteen is a lightness of being. What comes next is heavy.

Sometime through the night, Tommy Mark’s heart stopped beating.

Thirteen shouldn’t be spent in the arms of your loving parents wishing they had just one more moment with you. It shouldn’t be about coroners, cold meals brought to your home by loving friends and figuring out funeral plans.

But, here we are.

So, on Saturday, in a moment that will largely be inconsequential to some fans at StubHub Center, take a moment and clap a bit harder for LA Galaxy Academy product Tommy Mark.

You never know, but that warm embrace could help make the Mark family hearts just a little less heavy.

In the midst of the chaos, you could see the arms of a portly idiot flailing through the air. The pseudo-professional was tightly tucked into a grey suit like a bratwurst about to burst. A blue shirt and pink tie tied together the Easter-egg-died Humpty Dumpty motif. At one point, as the ball rippled the back of the net on the third LA Galaxy goal, the Bob’s Big Boy look-alike began to hit LA Galaxy assistant coach Dominic Kinnear on the back, exclaiming in what can only be described as audible blubber, “can you freaking (actual word redacted in case young children at the local library are reading) believe that just happened?!”.

An out of body experience is typically described as a sensation of being outside one’s body, typically floating and being able to observe oneself from a distance.

It’s been a while since I blacked out (*sheepishly recalls the six years I spent at the University of Colorado at Boulder drinking Keystone Light as a professional hobby). And I’m none too sure if I’ve ever felt an astral projection as a paranormal interpretation that assumes the existence of one or more non-physical planes of existence, though I did read Siddhartha once and I’ve been to yoga a few times.

What I can say is this: I freaking (actual word redacted in case my Mom post this on Facebook and my Grandmammy reads it while scrolling her timeline for casserole recipes) lost my cool on Saturday. When I say lost my cool, I don’t mean like I quietly fist pumped nonchalantly behind the bench. Or a slight “yes” while admiring the confetti glittering into the afternoon sun.

No, I full on jumped in the air while letting expletives fly like pieces of confetti glittering into the afternoon sun. The number of “can you effing believe that” issued in concession would make a sailor blush and would likely sell the store out of soap for my muddy mouth.

After Baggio Husidic played the looping ball over the top, I froze, tingling in anticipation of what could happen next. As Ashley Cole collected the ball on the left side of the field and struck a cross into the box, there was an All Dogs Go To Heaven-type of feeling. My body started to drift toward astral projection. When Zlatan Ibrahimovic directed his glancing header over the top of LAFC goalkeeper Tyler Miller and into the cobalt blue side netting I could see myself celebrating from the upper mezzanine of the ethereal plane. Looking down, I realized that I was cradling Kinnear like a baby and screaming at the top of my lungs. Furthermore, I began instructing the crowd and the team to “close out the game!”. Most on lookers asked to themselves, “who is this fat-faced idiot and why does he think he’s Knute Rockne.”

As I watched myself lose my cool, I realized that I wasn’t the only one.

It occurred to me that everyone at StubHub Center was under the same psychosis I was. The pandemonium was perfunctory.

The players were nonplussed, pushing to the touchline to feel the warmth of a contemporary comeback.

For the first time all game a smile creeped across the face of Sigi Schmid, his boyish grin reflective of a moment of righteousness.

In the fancy owner’s box, grown men in suits clamored for each other’s hands to high five the moment into history. Their shirts ruffled with rectitude and each one felt as if they’d seen sport for the first time.

The fans bathed in the bedlam. As the kid’s say, “who’s mans is this?” who has tallied us into a tizzy.

As the final whistle blew, I strode toward the center of the pitch, towel and water bottle in tow. A pseudo-professional returned from another place.

It was a nice reminder of the power of sport and why we come to work every day.

And to tell you the truth, I can’t wait to fucking do it again.