Unassigned
I caught the tail end of an inspiring news story last week. In it, a man late into his 70s was being interviewed about his new favorite hobby: playing tennis. That’s right, in the latter half of his life, this man picked up a tennis racket, took a few swings and now plays every morning in Lincoln Park.
I only saw the last few minutes of the segment, but it was enough to leave an imprint on me.
Perhaps I am over-relating and over-emoting (both are very likely), but I felt a sort of kindred spirit with this 70something-year-old tennis player (for the sake of this tale, let’s call him Al).
My story, on the surface, looks nothing like Al’s. I am not elderly, nor am I an active tennis player. But I do know what it means to try something new; to take an uncertain step into the unknown and risk failure.
Over the last year, as I have begun to scratch the surface on “what I wanna be when I grow up.” I have often felt like an old dog trying to learn new tricks.
And we all know what they say about that.
I am aware that 26 is not old by any means. But when I woke up last year in the middle of a three year-long career and realized that I was not where I thought I’d be, and furthermore had no clue where I wanted to be, I definitely felt old. And out of tricks.
When I eventually discovered that I wanted to be a writer, I had to face some hard truths: One, I have infinite amounts to learn about this craft; and Two, there will always be people who do this better than I do.
That was hard.
But once I faced and accepted those things, I was able to dip my proverbial toe in the water and put myself out there. Through that has come some big wins (this column, for one), but also some big let downs.
As I was searching for Al’s story on the internet, I came across a quote from a 66-year-old race-walker who describes how she learns new tricks, “I started challenging myself to walk faster, to skip, to go up hills. I’d get to the top of a hill and say, ‘I didn’t die, so I think I’ll try it again tomorrow.’”
I love that.
And that’s exactly how I move forward each day: Walking faster, skipping, going up hills and realizing that I survived; so tomorrow I will try again.
