I didn't want to make that point anyway!

Is tennis life?

This is Emily Writes Back, an advice column for brilliant people, by Emily Sanders Hopkins, essayist and cartoonist.

Good morning!

Marshall and I played our regular doubles tennis match against the triplets’ moms last evening, but this time the four of us had the courts to ourselves. The whole park was deserted and windswept and the grey cracked concrete courts were covered with little sticks and bits of moss. The pewter lake was choppy and white-capped, and along the shore the weeping willows’ long branches slanted out like hair in the wind. But we had fresh balls, neon bright.

Amy, one of the triplets’ moms, is a powerhouse. I remember the first time I met her at a party ten or twelve years ago. The party was full of parents and we were all delighted to be out drinking cocktails and wearing pretty clothes and circulating, but Amy seemed especially glad, like someone who had been locked away from other humans for a month too long. Her voice booms and she claps you on the back or embraces your hand, leans forward to get a good look at your soul. She is like a human thermometer sometimes. Are you well, are you happy, are you ready to give it your all today? She has very blue eyes and blond hair and has the look, lately, of a Finnish prime minister. Her aura is filled with authority and money and a thirst for something. She is thirsty for life. She appreciates things. She’s always learning new skills, new facts, improving herself. She has a knee brace she velcros on and off sometimes before our matches. Responsibly, she does stretches on the ground before we start to hit. Across the net, you see her crouched and swaying with her racquet at the ready, like a pro.

Maybe the way you play tennis is a good reflection of your personality and character. When things get sloppy, Amy shouts out a challenge. “Let’s get a good volley going! Let’s do this, people!” When the play starts to drag, she decreases the time between her serves, as if to defibrillate our tennis heart.

My tennis playing reflects my bad character. When I hit a few good returns or get my serve in a few times in a row, I am confident and happy and proud. I could run for Congress or bake a three-layer cake for a charitable function. But when I miss a few balls in a row and my serve isn’t like a serve at all, I become despondent and bitter. There comes a moment when I no longer care. And then I can sense that I am not trying nearly hard enough, which makes me embarrassed and ashamed, and so I catastrophize, as a fuel source, and say: Emily, you must return this next ball no matter what, as if your entire life depends on it. Just do it, bitch! Which usually works. (Maybe this is what Venus says to herself every single time? I don’t think so.) Then I start to resent tennis. Why does my life depend on it, though? And why do I keep hitting the ball long in that exact same way? Who can play in the twilight like this, with all this tree debris on the court? Close your racquet face, dumbass! And only occasionally do I think to glance at my valiant doubles partner, my lawfully wed husband, to compliment him on his good play. His tennis character is his general character as well: optimistic, funny, lighthearted, determined.

This topic of being a good sport or a bad sport keeps popping up in my mind.

A few weeks ago, an EWB reader wrote in asking how to get over her two-year streak of tough times now that things were turning her way—with a great new job and a new, easier phase of parenting. (You can read that exchange here.) Only after I replied to her letter did I realized what her dilemma reminded me of: the feeling of scoring a few amazing tennis points after a long stretch of bad play where you weren’t giving it your all, or even if you were giving it your all, you were grumbling under your breath like a baby.

It’s hard to accept great luck when you didn’t handle bad luck well. Windfalls are embarrassing when you were being a bad sport about being broke. It feels icky to be a fair weather friend to yourself, to realize that you are like Louis Winthrop III (Dan Aykroyd) from Trading Places, just one misfortune away from becoming a drunk and a pimp. And so, when GOOD luck comes, you have to forgive yourself for being a bad sport earlier, before you can really enjoy the boon.

Last week, my first reaction to learning that I had not gotten the job I applied for was tears and despair and shame. It turns out, my writing and editing test contained a typo. How embarrassing. I had swung and missed. (When the tombstone engraver misspelled my grandmother’s name on her tombstone last month, my aunt and uncles were outraged, wanting someone’s head on a platter, but I found myself feeling far more sympathy for the engraver than for my relatives. Some mistakes hurt the culprit most.)

Then, like a storm going out to sea, the darkness lifted and I was left feeling relieved at not getting the job—or feeling softly neutral about it all. Maybe I didn’t want that job anyway? The healing power of sour grapes, or just trust in the cosmic plan? Something much better could be around the bend for me. Anyway, I know one thing: I am not a piece of shit. (That is the best part about writing you these letters: the heartwarming conclusions!)

Write to me at EmilyWritesBack@gmail.com.

Coming Next…

What to wear to a Broadway play, how to choose a seltzer flavor, and where to store your go-bag.