Tag: flashback

Rush, rush

“I wanna see…..I wanna see you get free with me”

It was the summer of 1991, and I was fortunate enough to be on a Carnival cruise (family vacation). At the back of the ship’s nightclub with some other teenagers that I’d met a few days prior. We shouldn’t have even been in there, but the DJ had been generous enough to let us use that back area of the dance floor each night.

And we took full advantage. I still remember being locked in a slow dance with a girl named Jenny (as Paula Abdul sung her great new ballad that was being heard everywhere). The girl I would soon have my first kiss later that night.

I was 16 years old. My whole life was in front of me.

While the “and without a care in the world” cliche doesn’t apply (I never had that kind of easy and happy teenage life, other than rare escapes like that cruise)…..the one that does is how the future still seemed bright.

Never did I ever guess that I’d be typing this kind of blog entry 30 years later. Especially in this frame of mind about myself and the much more depressive and troubling life situation and future than I ever could’ve expected.

Not to mention off the heels of a huge pandemic scare a couple years ago, and fresh into a new huge worldwide conflict scare just a couple hours ago.

So now that I’ve brought back the Paula memory, it might be time to channel another popular ’80s artist next. Mr. Eddie Money.

“I wanna go back and do it all over. But I can’t go back, I know.

I wanna go back. Cause I’m feelin’ so much older.

But I can’t go back, I know”

A flashback to a past accomplishment

Even though this blog is my outlet for expressing the frustrations and difficulties that I don’t subject those in my “real life” to, occasionally it’s healthy to bring up something positive from the past too. Especially since writing about it gives my mind a short break from the mental hell that I’ve often been in for many years.

I’ve shared old baseball stories here briefly before. But while I’ll always be a baseball player at heart, a lot of my focus switched to tennis and pickup hoops during my teen years.

Was never a natural at either, but I was a good enough athlete to still improve over the years. Ended up being on the tennis team (and one of the top seeds on the team) throughout high school, despite how I was just a self-taught hack who didn’t have the polish and experience to beat the country-club type kids who’d been taking lessons their whole life, etc etc.

The perfect example of “that” type was our high school’s #1 player when I was a sophomore and he was a senior. Roberto. He destroyed most people in the area and went on to compete for the state championship. A big guy with a huge serve and nasty strong groundstrokes.

You watched him play and thought about how that was a level that most people never reached.

So when I went to college (a huge university), I continued to play recreationally all the time. By my senior year there, I’d honed my baseliner-esque skills as sharply as they could get. But when I entered the yearly student tennis competition, I never assumed that anything too memorable would come from it. Cause there were always a few people around who were just too advanced and skilled for me to handle.

That was what made the following six weeks so surprising.

Here’s how the competition was done: everyone who signed up was randomly thrown into groups of six. You played the other five people in your group, and then the top two (from each six) would advance to a single elimination tournament.

I breezed through those first five matches. And when the tournament bracket came out (which had about 60 or 65 players in it), I noticed that whoever set it up must’ve noticed how I and one other player had dominated so far. Because even though there were no formal rankings, you could tell that I was unofficially the #2 seed in the tournament. While a very familiar name was on top as the #1 seed:

Roberto.

Yep, there he was. Probably in med school at the university already or something.

Both of us kept advancing. By the time the semifinals came around, I was still in my best form and hadn’t even lost a set throughout any rounds.

Won my semifinal in straight sets too. So as I was on my way to the finals…..this huge tournament that I’d never come close to winning anything similar before….you know what’s next, right?

After 10 years of my game slowly improving step by step, it was time to see if I could come full circle and beat the guy who was the standard for tennis excellence growing up.

However…..once I got to the match, there was just one problem: the other player wasn’t Roberto. I’d just assumed that he’d win his semifinal; hadn’t even checked. But this other guy had just knocked him out.

Bet you didn’t see that coming?

Anyway, it didn’t even matter to me. I was there to try and win the tournament; there was no tying my ego to having it be directly through him.

Which I then did. In three tough sets, I pulled it out and won the championship. To absolutely no fanfare and no one watching, I’d just accomplished something that I never thought would happen.

I’d beaten the guy who beat Roberto and (out of over 200 players at the beginning) was the last one standing.

While this wasn’t the athletic moment that meant the most to me (as much as I respect the tennis court, those will always be baseball)…….it was definitely the most impressive.

I really miss that feeling. Success. Feeling like I was at the top of something. Pride. Accomplishment. It’s something I haven’t had for so many years now (and especially into the beginning of this midlife crisis).

Can only hope that someday, I can put together some life redemption that turns me back into that person. Even if it’s just for a short while.

Because I miss him.