The Super Bowl clinched it for me. I was a witness on Sunday to a miracle in sports, the euphoric culmination of a football season so utterly satisfying that I have no choice but to become a believer.

And so, I now declare myself to be a New England sports fan.

Since I am a New Yorker by birth, it won’t be easy to shed my old allegiances to the New York Giants, let’s say, or, more important, to the New York Mets. I was there in 1969, after all, when a bunch of nobodies who would come to be known as the Amazing Mets beat the odds and silenced the scoffers to win the World Series. It’s tough to forget something like that. It’s like denouncing one’s citizenship and taking up with a whole new country. Besides, how will I ever be able to face my family in New Jersey, a sports-mad bunch who still don’t know that I’ve gone to the other side?

Over the last 15 years or so, however, I’ve undergone a subtle and irreversible transformation that has been difficult for me to comprehend. The last time I cared at all about the NBA, for instance, was in the 1980s, when I couldn’t get enough of Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics. Looking back on those days, I now realize that the New York Knicks had already become a memory and that my shift toward New Englandism had begun. The same for pro football. Until this season, it had been a long time since I felt the urge to turn on the TV and take in a Sunday game. Tom Brady’s arrival on the scene changed everything. Suddenly, football was fun again. Rooting for the underdog New England Patriots each week gave the game a renewed freshness and meaning. The Patriots became an easy team to love, and I eagerly handed over my heart. Then, in the long-suffering tradition of the true New England sports fan, I waited for them to break it.

Had the Patriots been crushed on Sunday, as the rest of the sports world seemed certain they would be, I was ready for the disappointment. It would have seemed appropriate. Being a devoted fan of the Red Sox for the last four years had prepared me for this Super Bowl in ways I didn’t even suspect. When I first decided to adopt the Red Sox as my home team, my Maine friends regarded me suspiciously.

“Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?” they would ask. “We were born to be Red Sox fans. We can’t do anything to change that. But you still have a chance to enjoy baseball, to know the pleasure of cheering for a team that will not hurt you mercilessly in the end. It’s our curse. Don’t make it yours.”

But I did, and in the last couple of seasons I’ve begun to understand the despair of embracing a team that hasn’t won a World Series since 1918. Masochist that I am, I also blithely adopted a football team that had never won a Super Bowl. By Sunday, it was too late. When the tide began to turn against the Patriots, I steeled myself for the disappointment that is the birthright of the New England sports fan. I left the TV and stepped outside for some air. The streets were hushed. Suddenly, I heard a painful scream from a neighbor’s house – “Noooo!” I rushed back to the TV to find that the Rams had tied the game. My stomach knotted. It was happening. The New England sports plague had reared its ugly head. My friends had warned me, and I hadn’t listened. Then the miracle occurred: the exhilarating drive downfield, the field goal from 48 yards out as the seconds ticked away, the impossible dream finally realized. By Monday morning, I felt certain that New England’s reign of bad sports luck was over for good. There would be no more pain and suffering. The spirit of the Patriots’ victory would carry us right through the Red Sox baseball season, past that silly curse of the Bambino, and onto a World Series crown.

“Sorry, but it doesn’t work like that,” said a weary veteran New England sports fans. “This championship is all we’re ever going to get.”

What have I gotten myself into?