Dink

(Or awkward is at least something)

I’m taking pickleball lessons, because:

1. My son, Briggs, used to play street pickleball with me in front of our house in Andover. By “play,” I mean we batted a pickleball back and forth in the street and made up our own rules.

2. The old me never officially played. I have a hard time returning to things I did before becoming a Cancer Shark. Writing is one of them. Even though I know it helps, it hurts too. I still catch myself feeling like my shot to do something meaningful with it has already passed. I like that there is no former pickleball Amanda to compare myself to. I love that she doesn’t exist.

3. It gives me a set place to be every Monday evening that is not the hospital and not the sixty-two-mile drive between Bridgewater and Billerica.

4. It is fun to learn something new that has nothing to do with disease or medication.

Every hit, step, serve, return, and whatever comes before a dink carries a little awkwardness. The word “dink” is so awkward I can’t even bring myself to say it out loud. I do not like feeling awkward. Flow is much better. But awkward is still better than lost.

There is hope in awkward.
Lost just feels gone.

During last week’s lesson, the instructor asked me to hit the ball straight across from where I was standing. Every time I aimed straight, the ball drifted off. After a few tries, I finally asked what I was doing wrong.

He told me there was nothing mechanically wrong with my approach.

“It’s your perspective of straight,” he said. “Aim for what you think is the left end of the net.”

So I did.

And the ball went straight.

He smiled. “It’s not your approach. It’s your perspective.”

That one landed harder than the ball.

Because the truth is, my perspective does get in my way. Not all the time. Not in every area. But often enough that I know it when I see it. Or maybe often enough that I know it when I miss it.

And while it may sound simple to shift perspective, for me, that often feels as far-fetched as curing Stage IV melanoma. Especially when the shift required is toward self-compassion, forgiveness, or even just giving myself the benefit of the doubt.

Still, far-fetched beats impossible.

So maybe the win is not that I hit the ball straight. Maybe the win is that I stayed long enough to learn that straight was not where I thought it was.

Maybe the win is that the awkwardness did not scare me off.

Maybe the win, at least for now, is that I am still willing to stand in the wrong position, listen, adjust, and go again.

I can’t honestly say that feels like enough.
But I can admit it feels like something.
And something is better than gone.