Finding My Tribe

When I really started playing a lot of tennis, in Prague, in the summer and fall of 2014, I was surprised to find out much I enjoyed it ... and how much it started to dominate my thoughts. Indeed, many was the night, that first year or two, when I would actually fall asleep thinking about how to improve my backhand swing, or visualizing how to get more topspin on my groundstrokes, or whatever. I felt a bit silly about it — I was certainly aware that Wimbledon was not in my future — but I had found something I really enjoyed, was pretty good at (relatively speaking), and was enjoying the process of getting better at. Those images flooded my brain as I lay in bed whether I wanted them to or not.

One day in the spring of 2018, now back in Budapest, I was taking the tram back home with a younger Hungarian guy (maybe 27/28?) I had just played (and beaten) in a social match. It's always easier to be friendly and helpful after a win, so I was being social and expansive. I mentioned to the young man, whose name I now unfortunately don't remember, how often I had, back in Prague, spent that time imagining and visualizing ways of improving my game, and how my friends and I would regularly find, exchange, and discuss valuable "how to improve your tennis game" videos on youtube (like this one). 

He looked at me open-mouthed. I'm probably misremembering him as speaking to me in a more dramatic tone than he actually did, but in my memory he almost whispered, "I thought I was the only one who did that."

I reassured him that there was a world of people who not only played tennis, but ... quickly became obsessed with it. It's something I've noticed here in Tucson, too — so many of my friends don't just play tennis sometimes, when there's nothing better to do, but ... whenever they can, inevitably 2 or 3 or 4 (or more) times a week, with license-plate holders and stickers on their cars reflecting their passion for the game. Clearly their spouses (most of whom are not similarly obsessed) know to accept and condone their enthusiasms, as they really spend a lot of time at the club. And a lot of us, despite our advanced age and limited prospects for advancement of any significant kind, nonetheless take lessons, or use the ball machine, or share tips (you're standing too close, or "finish your shot"), or whatever else we can think of to get better.

I'm aware that other people have other obsessions, whether it's racquetball or painting or yoga or ... reading or language-learning.  I'm not really suggesting that tennis is in any way unique. It's just ... nice to discover your passion, your people. And even though I now rarely fall asleep thinking about how to turn my body for overheads, and I don't have any idea whether this will last or will some day be replaced by something else ... I understand that young Hungarian man's relief at finding he'd found his tribe. It turns out that in this context like so many others, "I thought I was the only one" is almost never true.