A well-used wooden tennis racket hangs on my office wall, its leather grip worn and its yellow varnish cracked, but the maroon Bjorn Borg logo, so often slicked with sweat, somehow still sharp. I hung the racket on impulse, too lazy to pry out an unused nail and fill the hole with toothpaste.
Then I froze. Huge mistake. Looking at that racket was bound to make me sad, because my tennis-playing days are long past. Some of my happiest hours were spent on tennis courts, but I had to stop in my late twenties because of pain it would take thirty more years to diagnose. Now, I glance up at the racket, hesitant, afraid to press on a bruise. It has been decades, yet I can still feel the racket’s sweet spot vibrating after a cross-court backhand; I can still feel my back arching to serve (most often, badly; I never did develop a smashing serve). The fluorescent yellow ball, warm and crewcut-fuzzy, slapping up against my palm after that sly side-of-the-foot pickup. The suspense, hunched over, knees bent, racket moving side to side, ready for anything….
It is that attitude I want to keep: primed, flexible, ready for anything. So that I can look at reminders of what I have lost, or rather, what I once loved, without wanting to return to their time. Sure, it would feel great to whack a tennis ball again, but now I have titanium that needs to stay in its socket, so I hike instead.
We are different every year. Our interests change, abilities or understandings improve, limitations crash down on us. Our routines and schedules and obligations change, too, as do our surroundings and our cash flow. A quick twist of the kaleidoscope, and the colors are all different, their patterns shifting. The old beauty is replaced by something new. Something stunning—or maybe ugly, in which case we have to wait for the next turn. Why is there no annual ritual that would remind us to take stock, reevaluate, and reassign our energies? Other cultures go walkabout or embark on a vision quest. We pout. Or make unrealistic New Year’s resolutions predicated on the previous year’s failures.
If we let ourselves harden, as though we are still who we used to be, then all we will be able to do is whine, mourning all the losses and resenting whatever replaces what we loved. The arrogance of that! Whoever said the world was supposed to freeze for us—and would we really want it to? Things are far lovelier in memory than they were in reality. And sure, it would be lovely if our bodies stayed fit forever, but then they would be machines, not fragile warm flesh, and we would be cyborgs, heartless and invulnerable.
I prefer to rot and suffer. And to look at the tennis racket hanging, inert, on the wall, and teach myself to be grateful for what once was rather than bitter because it now eludes me. Still, life piles up, and soon you face this problem of mementos and nostalgia around every corner. How do you learn to savor without wallowing?
I think the answer is grief’s own riddle. How do you grieve someone’s absence without feeling angry at them for leaving you or mad at yourself for all you failed to do and say? The only way to a clean, sweet grief is to love them fully, with every ounce of yourself, while they are alive. In a trivial echo of that truth, you have to play tennis with all your heart, sweating and shouting and hitting every stroke as hard as you can, throwing yourself into the game. Making closure possible.
Hanging the racket was not a huge mistake. Now I look up now and then and smile, glad for all the games I did play. The real regrets are for the things I never said, the risks I never took, the stuff I did half-assed, the questions I never got answered. The sorrows I dreaded, the endings and losses of what was truly wonderful, do not sting the way I thought they would. When you have given your whole self to whatever you love, rather than dabbling lackadaisically, doing the minimum, showing up for obligatory holidays, playing a game with one eye on the clock or the folks on the other court…something inside you calms. You can rest easy at an ending, close the chapter with no sharp regrets and nothing you failed to squeeze from the experience. And that clean grief opens you up for the next love.
Maybe not right away. Maybe there will be years of pain, your leg propped up or your heart aching, before a new joy appears. And maybe it will not be quite as much fun as tennis, or it will seem less challenging or less convenient or harder to master. It might take time to learn what is beautiful or challenging about this new thing you are pouring yourself into.
You are new now, too. Maybe, if this culture were not so terrified of age and change, we would learn to reintroduce ourselves to our minds, hearts, and bodies at least once a year, taking note of their latest configuration and their present needs. There will always be new strengths and new limitations. Some can be pushed away with intelligent techniques; others, you have to make your peace with. But once you do, you can wait, knees bent, shifting side to side, eager for the next serve and ready to move in any direction to respond.
Read more by Jeannette Cooperman here.
