Holy Humiliating: The Day I Took My Husband to my Tennis Lesson (Part One)

I have done so many dumb things in my life I could start a new blog for each category of stupid (risky behaviors I did for men, e.g. tattoos, breaking and entering, etc.;  things I quit and the lame reasons why; addictions I shake and then rekindle just for fun;  temper flares, including in the company of cops; big mouth moments, etc.). Things I knew better than to do. Part of maturing seems like just getting clearer about doing these dumb things, eyes wide open, alert to the possible fallout. God forbid I stop myself.

Take, for instance, the night of Thanksgiving when, after the crowds had left and T and I sat with some late-night friends, and I got all riled up as I described what was to occur the very next day: I was taking T to my beloved tennis lesson because he (of course, why wouldn’t he?) wanted to play and my beloved coach offered (of course, why wouldn’t he?) to hook T up with someone to hit with while I had my lesson. Fun, right?

No. Not fun.

And I knew it would not be fun, which is why I was ranting and raving because:

1.) I decided to learn to play tennis last summer, so I have been playing for 6 months, once a week.

2.) I still suck. As I should (she tries to convince herself) ! I am 43 years old and…..see #1 above.

3.) T has been playing tennis since his nanny could step his cute little legs into a pair of white shorts.

4.) I LOVE playing. And it’s not just the game I love. It’s the attention from the coach, the subtle, but completely not emotionally or psychologically complicated attunement to my body, of all things, as it tries to learn to meet a ball, of all things, in space.

5.) I am a very jealous person, though I haven’t always seen it that way (there’s that maturity thing again). I am especially jealous of people who just happen to fall into things I scramble for.

6.) I am also greedy and possessive of the things I love. When I had an analyst in the city way back when, named Grace, and I loved her so so so sosososo dearly, I felt like throwing up when I saw people coming out of her office before me, or waiting on the bench after me. Once I got really mad at her and cried and told her what a whore I thought she was. I was in my early twenties (not yet mature), so I guess that’s why she let me come back.

So….here we have six good reasons not to take my uber-athlete/wasp husband to my precious little love realm. Oh, I forgot:

7) I was the skinny girl in the gym suit and glasses who DREADED dodge ball, and you can guess why. And just to add a little more flavor, the beastly 7th grade girls (that one girl Sonia with the 1980 frizzed out wedge hair and giant thighs/butt scenario: damn!)  nailed me (and I don’t think I am special…there had to be others) because they were my brother’s stoner friends and he harassed me publicly enough times to put a Scarlet L (oser) on my flat little front.

In other words, there is enough fear of sports, coupled with never doing them (for obvious reasons), to make my foray into tennis unlikely and very…tender….as we like to say. I feel very, very vulnerable playing tennis. I hate being watched. And I really want to be good, which is, in and of itself, kind of embarrassing.

So, enter, T into my safe place.

to be continued….