On aging and athletics

As you may know, I play tennis on a regular basis. Three or four times a week I put on the cute little skirt with the shorts built in (because I need to have POCKETS), try to find a pair of relatively clean socks in the bottom of my “gym” bag, don those perfect little white shoes and meander out onto the court with three other women to whack away at the ball. I consider this to be mental health as much as – or more than – physical activity.

Of course, when I play with the “easy” crowd of 60-somethings, they consider me to be the retriever and take a perverse pleasure in lobbing the ball to opposite corners of the back court so they can watch me run back and forth like some sort of deranged puppy. When I play with the “big girls” (who are actually quite competitive in nature) I am more of a goalie – standing at the net and hoping to avoid having a tennis ball become the newest thing in orthodontic technology.

I love the game. I really do. But I have to admit that I’m beginning to feel the aches and pains of the half-century mark. My shoulder hurts when I serve, and for a day after each match, my heels hurt. I’ve gone one round with tennis elbow and have discovered the giant economy size keg of Ibuprofen that they sell at Costco. I now refer to any stray ball on the court as a “Rosenberg” in honour of the local orthopedic surgeon (who has had the pleasure of the company of almost all of my tennis buddies at one point or another). In short, I’ve decided that aging – even a wee bit – stinks.

The upside of all of this, however, is being a member of a tennis team that won its first match yesterday. My partner and I (she’s just a little younger than I am and SHE has to wear her tennis elbow thing and a knee brace, and cannot rush forward because of a torn calf muscle) hammered our opponents – allowing them just one game in two sets. Ah, the rush of victory. I feel almost as good as Tad. No tears, but if there had been, I suspect they would have been of pain.

Today, to celebrate (read recuperate) I’m going to lie around and read, maybe catch a bit of the Orioles baseball game – which will give me an opportunity to rag on those teenagers who go onto the DL because of hangnails – and try to generate enough new brain cells to ensure that I’ll be bright enough to NOT play tennis tomorrow morning. It won’t happen. I’m on at 11:00 – and I WILL be wearing some clean socks.