Daniela decided to switch up her sports one last time as she comes into the final homestretch of high school. So after running cross country, skiing nordic, doing high jump, javelin, & shot put, and playing lacrosse, she’s added captain of the tennis team to her list. Which also means that for the first time ever, one of my children is doing a sport that I can actually help them, because I actually played a fair bit of tennis back in the day. (Mind you “fair bit” and “played” are doing some pretty heavy lifting in that sentence, but the fact remains that I am better than an absolute beginner, which is remarkable in my book.)
I went to watch one of her matches two weeks ago, and I was happy to see that I could maybe teach her a thing or to, so yesterday we went down to the local courts and found an hour to play. (Finding time when we’re both available is a very uphill battle. Between my work, writing, and church duties, and her . . . everything, we’re lucky if we see each other during the day.) We worked on serves and volleys, and we played a few games. By the end of the hour, she really did seem to be improving in a number of areas, and I think she left the session feeling very optimistic.
Daniela doesn’t struggle much with optimism most times. She’s a very confident, outgoing person, and she’s not afraid to put herself out there, take risks, and do new things. I really admire it about her, as it’s not something I’m very good at. I’m much more a “think a problem through fifty times, then think it through once more, just to be sure, before I take any actions” when it comes to most things. While that can be helpful in many situations, it’s also far from useful in many others. Having watched her approach, there’s definitely something to be said with just taking action and figuring out how to fix things if something happens to go wrong. Often, nothing does go wrong.
In other good news, my shoulder didn’t hurt after we played tennis, which is a sign that all of my stretching and light exercise has continued to keep it in good operating condition. If you know me and you know my shoulder, you know that wasn’t a given. So yay for that.
In any case, it was a lot of fun to go and play with Daniela, and I hope we get a chance to do it a few more times before she’s off on her mission in three months(!)