Have you ever heard a song you like so much that you play it over and over again until you want to press skip whenever it comes on? Well, imagine listening to that same song over and over again everyday for twelve years.
The sport of tennis became this kind of song for me. From the first time I picked up a racket at six years old, I fell in love with the sport. I wanted to dedicate my life to it, I wanted to become the greatest, I thought I had found my purpose. As the years went on, more and more days came where I wanted to skip the song, but never the less I kept it on my playlist and kept listening. Don’t get me wrong, even when you get tired of your favorite song, you still love the song, you just don’t want to listen to it everyday.
Twelve years later, I am all I’ve always wanted to be: an NCAA Division 1 tennis player. But now that I’m here I see it isn’t how I always imagined it. I love my team, I love my coaches, I love competing, but it isn’t the love I once had. Most days it takes a tremendous amount of will and mental effort to get myself out on the court, to get myself to want to be there. A wave of dread sweeps over me before every practice, and I question if I can make it through the next three years, but I remind myself how good four years of a Division 1 sport looks on a Law School application. It’s hard because even though I may be tired of this song, listening to it reminds me why I loved it in the first place, but most days the struggle is simply hitting the play
button.
