Number 23, please.

My love affair with football has been well documented here and on other parts of the Internet.

While I think that this love would have grown with any batch of players on the field, I cannot help but recognize that my first year of Bears was also Devin Hester's. He made our hearts beat faster. 

So to know now (or to assume based on what the Internet has told me) that he will no longer be a Chicago bear fills me with sadness and so much nostalgia.

You might say that the Indianapolis Colts were the winners of 2007 Super Bowl, but I stand by the fact that D. Hest. won that game in the first 10 seconds. The rest of the game was a nightmare but I would not trade the win for that kickoff return (I mean if I did, Rex Grossman would probably still be the QB, big picture here, people).

And to know that he might break the return record with another team? Fairly irrational devastation. You're going to get so close to this moment with a player and then just shrug and move on. Clearly, I am not thinking so much as a football coach, but a very sentimental little girl - which is why they don't let me make choices.

This Friday I raise my glass (that is currently full of earl gray tea) to number 23. I will never hear the Soulja Boy song without thinking of the time that I saw liveandinperson one of his returns. It was magic.

I have never created a meme in my life, but the fact that this didn't already exist made it necessary.

Bear Down.