Nothing to call my own

I just got back from playing tennis. It was fun, but I was having an off day. As much as I wanted to play, and I really did a lot, I didn't ever feel quite there.

All I managed to do well was think. I spent the morning thinking about how I'm not actually good at any single sport. I love sports, both watching and playing them. But I am legitimately not good at any of them. The only reason I keep playing is because it's fun and I like to, which should be enough and almost always is. I've always known this about myself, that I don't have a sport to call my own, but for some reason today it really didn't sit right with me. I think a lot of people are under the impression that because I love sports so much I must be, like, really good at them. Or at least really good at one of them. This is not the case.

You know how everyone has at least one thing they're just really good at? Yeah, I literally do not have one of those things. I'm not even kidding. I just do a lot of stuff in a generally good way, above mediocrity and possibly above average, but I have no one talent. Today I wanted my one thing to be tennis.

I've lived the last four or five years of my life with the secret mantra of "Fake it till you make it." It took all I had today not to curse up a storm. But instead I pretended it was all fun and good and that I was frustrated only because I wasn't playing well. And it's not like you can stop in the middle of a game and say, "Hey friend, I'm just not feeling it today. How about we talk instead?" That's not how these things work.

The worst part about all of this is that I should be enjoying the long weekend. I should be enjoying the fact that I had a great birthday, one so relaxing. Just yesterday I wrote how I was more relaxed than I had been in months. Not even a day later, I'm completely frustrated. Of all the feelings to feel, why did it have to be sadness? 

“Sad is not something I like to be. I’d choose angry or bored or lonely or sick or stabbed-repeatedly-in-the-kneecap-with-toothpicks over Sad. Being sad makes me feel… pathetic? Or needy? Or like I’m a burden to the people I spend enough time around for them to be obligated to care? I know it’s irrational to feel guilty for talking about my human emotions in the place where I… write about my human emotions, but there it is. I’m sad and I regret being sad and whdoihadnfjenbfjwe whatever.” -Hayley G. Hoover

I'm going to get something to eat and listen to The Head And The Heart and hope I somehow find the way to choose happiness today. Because whatever I'm feeling right now? It sucks.

Last YouTube video I watched: Thoughts from Place: Los Angeles after the Earthquake