failure

My parents were ecstatic to have a tall girl like me on their hands. There were so many possibilities involving a girl, some form of ball, and a college scholarship.

But reality came crashing down when I dribbled the ball down the court the wrong way and broke both my wrists at the same time in a very polished backward fall. My parents drug me to all kinds of training and practices just to hear coaches say things like “we’ll put her in next time” and “we are winning by twenty, so what the hell.” Soccer required all that running, volleyball required all that depth perception, and they pretty much gave up on me until tennis came along.

Now tennis, I actually liked. I was terrible, mind you, but I didn’t have people yelling at me or telling me I sucked when it was just me and a wallboard, blissfully mastering the art of backhands with a bucket of balls. Seeing a glimmer of hope that I might lead a normal life and not become a colossal choir nerd, my parents enrolled me in private lessons. They drug me across town to the country club with the rich kids so I could attend tennis camp and bought me little tennis skirts with blue and yellow stripes. In the summer, in my tennis skirt, with a private coach, with sweat running down my forehead, I felt special. I felt athletic. I finally felt as if I was part of something.

Fast forward to the school year, where I was known as the girl-who-fell-down-a-lot-and-wheezed, and the tennis coach apparently didn’t glom onto my enthusiasm. I never won a game, I couldn’t keep up with the drills, and my shots looked sort-of like this:

Miss (that was weird)
Miss (the sun, it was in my eyes)
Ball over the fence (looking down at racket, which is clearly strung improperly)
Amazing backhand that whizzed over the net cross-court and no one could touch

Forever an optimist, I saw this twenty-five percent ratio as total success. For some reason, even though the tennis coach told me once that “you either have it or you don’t, so as far as you go, please keep singing in choir,” he let me on the team. Probably because I was a senior, and it was my life goal to get an athletic letter jacket (how else would I display all those music patches?), and because I was a funny girl that made the team laugh. So I became like the “official team encourager” that went along to all the tennis meets and looked the part. But no one even asked if I won a game – after a while they were sort-of shocked that I was even in the tournament to begin with. But golly I tried, and I always kicked the dirt when I lost, and believed I’d do better next time. High school finally ended, the yearbook had a picture of me looking very athletic, and looking back I should have just rested in this glory forever.

And yet.

One day in college, bored and wanting for a date, I rolled up my sleeves one afternoon and hit the court with a bucket of balls and my old tennis racket. It was a good stress reliever, the weather was nice and hot, and I was suddenly filled with the sensation that I could actually play. Maybe I did have talent hidden underneath my goofy exterior that just needed some time to germinate before it finally blossomed like a beautiful flower.

That wasn’t true, of course. I think it might have been heatstroke.

But my parents always told me I could do anything I set my mind to, so I contacted the athletic department. I was going to try out for the Texas Tech University Tennis Team. A school of thirty-thousand students, with athletes who fly across the world to compete? No problemo. Yes, I was available to meet with the coach for an information interview. Yes, I was more than happy to work out with the team. And yes, why of course I could play tennis at a very professional level. State championship? Well, no. But I have many, many participation ribbons and a really awesome set of jokes. That should count for something.

For a month, I got to eat at the athletic dining hall, and made many friends with people from Sweden and Missouri. I was fascinated by the whole experience and soaked it up with vigor. I ran laps and said “hell yeah suckahs!” and wore the perfect grimace. But eventually, I had to hit the ball. And thus began the comedic efforts of One Who Cannot Actually Play Tennis at the college level, bumbling and missing and having a terrific ‘ol time. The girl from Sweden just looked at me like I just recently landed on Planet Earth.

The coach was so incredibly sweet, and pulled me aside after a few days to give me the tragic news. “You didn’t make the team,” she said. She offered some great advice, like perhaps years and years of lessons. Or an arm transplant. Perhaps a racket that hits the balls for you. Or sticking with choir. I thanked her so much, and hugged the Swedish girl. I smiled my big Texas smile. “It’s just such an honor,” I said as I held my hand to my heart and dabbed tears. But by this time they had turned their heads, back to practice. I was totally that kid on American idol who sounds like metal parts rubbing together that everyone laughs at. Get the crazy girl off the court.

I went on to do fulfilling and wonderful things in college, like being a Resident Assistant in the dorms (is that pot I smell?), singing baroque music (oh beauty, oh harmony), or meeting my friends in the dining hall for chicken strips (the gravy/ it’s divine). I had a very dorky useless boring amazing college life, and I don’t regret for one day my near-brush with athletic fame and fortune.

I think the lesson to be learned here is to never give up. One day, you may actually realize what you’re good at and quit making a fool of yourself. But what’s the fun in that?

Keep on playing, suckahs. . .

—

photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skelastic/7817107614/sizes/m/in/photolist-cULHKu-cR6eqN-cULMNC-cULMnC-cR6eKb-cULRUL-cULV9Y-cR82Lm-cULK1A-cR6cTY-cULTib-cULVFq-cULP7E-cR83Kf-cULJQw-cULTBY-cULUuj-cR6ecm-cULQFh-cULS5J-cR834q-cULK9U-cULLT1-cULNDG-cULQfb-cULRdw-cULMZ5-cULU5j-cULQ8C-cULT8y-cR81Qm-cULLLY-cULKPo-cULLsC-cULM47-cULRGs-cULSpf-cULRxq-cULVkd-cULNYm-cULVSC-cULMCu-cULKYC-cULLAC-cULSg5-cULUHh-cR7Xe7-cR7Wz9-cULNtq-cULQYq-cULJBw/

I knew a girl that trained for the Olympics. She got permission to cut out early from school to spend eight hours in the gym. Her parents were insanely rigid and no one really invited her to play dates or to have ice cream sundaes. She couldn’t come anyway because she was training. She was always training. Her father died young. I always thought he bottled all the angst and misery and fear of watching his twelve-year old girl fail or turn or miss a handoff and one day he just couldn’t take it anymore. He put a gun to his temples and blew it all away. Just tiny bits of stress scattered into the ether.

In a tiny way, amidst the cheers and clapping and proud faces, I see the pain in the eyes of all those collective Olympians, their young hearts beating rapidly under their overbuilt bodies with sparkles on their eyelids. After all – the brass ring of winning looms so high. Some of these tiny girls – leaping and hopping and tumbling on a national stage before their sixteen birthday – don’t even have arms long enough to reach out and grab it. They haven’t built up the maturity to handle the fleeting moment when the edges of their fingers touch it, but it slips past their grasp. It reminds me of Gollum in Lord of the Rings, wanting something so bad it becomes a longing that’s seared into you. After a while it’s nothing but an empty, haunting noise in one’s twisted throat.

The announcer introduced a young Romanian. Her eyes had that steely gaze of one who knows exactly what she wants. She had won silver four years earlier, but not grabbing that ring had left a hole in her heart. I wanted to clasp that poor girl into my arms. I wanted to hand her journals of pink butterflies and banana splits and afternoons lounging around under oak trees reading mystery novels. I wanted to give her back a childhood and tell her it’s just a silly piece of metal, coated with only shreds of worth. But her stare was so unyielding. It was a hopeless cause.

She mounted the balance beam so assuredly. She had done this so many times, and in so many ways. Through injuries and bad days and being yelled at. When she was hungry and longed for a day off and when her legs were pinching and burning and red like fire.

And then she fell.

It was just a simple turn – the announcer said. But there she went, cascading down in slow motion to the padded mat below, chalk puffing up around her tiny feet as she hit. She rose slowly, as if her life’s work had been for naught. As if all she ever wanted had come crumbling down around her feet. The grief was printed on her face. Her arms rose to the beam again to climb back on, but it was a dead baby now.

Her eyes haunted my dreams that night. I thought of how one might not ever recover such an epic failure. These are champions. They overcame great hurdles in their rise to glory. And yet there is that looming dread of going home empty handed. The oiled finger that couldn’t grasp the ring. The missed opportunity that would never again present itself.

As I was telling my husband about it that night, he stopped reading and thought about it for a moment. He said he felt failure was an overused word. We might miss opportunities, or do things we regret, or take paths that might later need redirection. “But failure is final,” he said. “And it’s not over until the end of the game.”

I thought about our lives. The raising of our children. The tenuous bonds of marriage and friendship and being the one others count on. Our eyes grow so focused on being good at it, and choosing the right paths, and winning. Sometimes there is that moment you almost let it overtake you. Like the father who put the gun to his head and gave in.

But God expects more than this. We are all built to be champions. And someday, there will be that second we step onto that balance beam and our feet fall flat underneath us. It is that moment we must find the inner strength to rise again. Through the grief. Through the defeat. Through the brokenness. We must stand proud and tall on that beam, and with all the energy left in our tired bodies we must clap those hands together, look high to the sky as our backs arch in beauty, and land squarely on two feet. We will regroup. We will not let this define us. We will dismount after the fall.

If you look closely enough, you’ll see a shiny little ring dangling from your fingers. Funny thing is, by then it doesn’t seem to matter.

—

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96434059@N00/with/1017675131/#photo_1017675131

The Day I Tried Out for the College Tennis Team

Failure is not an option

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