Love And Competition

“So warm and insightful you were in my eyes”

It’s been seven years since I played competitive tennis. Those days, for sure, were unlike any other. Looking back now at all the matches is one massive blur. At the time, I remember each match felt like the most important. Until the next one, that is.

So it is with relationships. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and all I can think of is the Patty Smith/Don Henley duet “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough”. And I think…what a difference a year makes. Last year’s valentine was special to me. I made a complete fool of myself for him in more ways than one. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do, the most imperative way to be. If I had to do it again, I know I would do things differently. As Smith said in the song, “there’s a danger in loving someone too much”. How true she is.

See, the thing about competitive tennis and my former valentine are they both wore me out and broke me down. They both played with my emotions and sent my heart spinning. There is one important difference between the games we play with people and the games we play for sport. The difference lies in how we remember. If you play tennis long enough, day after day, the drudgery and routine of match play beings to overwhelm.  I don’t care who you are, it will get to you after a while. Chances are there is little to distinguish between matches, save for the three setters or the state competitions. You remember the first match of the season for its freshness, but two weeks later you can barely remember what team you faced.  

I wish I could say the same for human relationships. I wish I could treat each heartbreaker as a clipping from a tennis match, one that I fold up like a Valentine’s Day card and file in my scrapbook. I can’t do that. I especially can’t discard someone with whom I shared my most intimate thoughts and treat it like just another close defeat. Tennis players do often carry around tough defeats and it floods their mind and their heart with frustration. But I hardly think the effects are long-lasting. Perhaps because there is no reversal of the outcome, we tennis players eventually forget former heartbreaks. That philosophy doesn’t translate to life. “It’s sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust,” says Smith. What happens when you can no longer trust your own heart, when you can’t trust yourself with him? I’m still not sure, even as another Valentine’s Day rolls around, how I can begin trusting in love again.

“But for seven years you were loved”