Saturday, April 19, 2008

Love 40.


I used to play tennis every day … before I met my husband. I had immersed myself with tennis. I played almost every night after work and then played all weekend. It was my life. I didn’t have a love life, so I had tennis. When I met Mr. Husband, he understood that tennis was my life. He re-arranged his life for my life. I’ve now done that for him with video games, but first came the Mr. Husband and his Big Tennis Give.

For the first six months of our relationship, he accompanied me on many tennis excursions. We even went to Mobile for the 3.5 USTA State Doubles Tournament where I got my butt kicked viciously due to the fact that hanging out with Mr. Husband was much more fun than practicing tennis. Totally. But practice, I did, half-heartedly. And he would come and watch and support me every night as he banged away on his laptop. He’s building a video game, http://vyde.com/, so he worked on this while I ran around on the hard courts late at night. My Mr. Husband was never athletic. Never at all. The fact that we went on a hiking honeymoon on the Highlands in Scotland is a wondrous mystery to his family. He is somewhat athletically savvy now. However, then, it hurt him to walk for distances that were longer than point A to point B, wherein point B is the car.

Today, we went out on the tennis courts. This was court visit #3 for Mr. Husband. At six foot, six inches, it’s hard for him to get moving and then hard for him to stop when he gets his frame into motion. He’s a beautiful wonder on the tennis court. He doesn’t mind that he’s terrible. He continues to try. He loves it. He smiles. He misses the ball. He smiles and tries again. He hits the ball outside the fence surrounding the courts. He smiles. He dumps the ball into the net time and again. He smiles. He misses the ball. And he smiles. I love his plucky tennis attitude. He smiles.

Our good friends Nader and Hind called and wanted to play tennis. Nader knows how to play tennis because he lost a bet about a Simpson’s trivia fact in 2004 and had to play tennis with me for 16 evenings. Hind, his wife, is naturally athletic and picks things up easily. None of us had stepped on the court in years. We were evenly matched for fun social tennis. The four of us bounced around the court and laughed as we made mistakes. Mr. Husband being the most non-athletic of the bunch did very well. I believe I’ll make a tennis player out of him yet. I believe it will happen. He’s six foot, six inches and a half – he’ll kill at the net. My family, who are all tennis players, have always looked at him with a spark in their eye. He makes them drool. The net game we could have! Just think!

He’s mastered Wii Tennis, why not the real thing? It is a wonder in marriage when your better half helps and tries at the things that mean most to you. I have this in my Mr. Husband. I learn from him and try to be more like him as he tries to be more like me and my family on the tennis court.

Attached is a photo of us in Mobile at a tennis tournament. He takes such good care of me. I want him to live forever. I think teaching him tennis will help me reach that goal.

1 comment:

facingthetrend said...

What a fun post!! I'll send you an email update about my recent vacation once I get the pics sorted out. Nice to see that you and Mr. Husband are keeping busy and still wonderfully, sickeningly in love. :)