Losing the Plot

You know that saying, you can’t win them all? Well, apparently you can lose them all. Because that’s what I’ve been doing.

I am a very competitive person. Perhaps I should divide my friends into two groups: those who haven’t seen me play sports, and those who have.

After tennis recently, I had a serious conversation with myself about whether this is good for my mental health.

I lost 0-6, 1-6. I went home and took a shower and forced my mind to wander. I had to, so I didn’t think about the loss. If I stayed on that thought for one moment, I would punch the tiled wall hard enough to break every knuckle in my hand.

This rage – it’s not irrational, as much as my mother would call it such. It’s rational. I can name everything that happened in the match that made me feel like that.

My dad asked me today: “Haven’t you ever felt okay after losing? If they were respectful and it was a fun match?”

“No,” I said definitively. “If I have ever acted pleasant after losing, it was just good acting.”

I can say it with no proviso: I have never felt anything but potent rage after I lose.

Lose what? Anything. My pride is indomitable. I am never too tired for the acrimony of failure.

Losing is everything and nothing. It is all that matters. I do not fight to win. I fight to avoid this feeling.

Winning feels nothing like that. I feel a brief satisfaction, that the story is going as it should. And then I am passing time until the next time I play, when I keep the world spinning by winning again.

Maybe I should quit. I wouldn’t have to play. I wouldn’t have to lose.

But – if I quit, this would be it.

Losing.

That is not my ending. It shouldn’t be in my story at all.

Winning is breathing. Losing is dying.

So, why? Why do I show up every Tuesday night to lose again? It’s not hope, not really, because I’m too much of a perfectionist to hope. Hope is for people who don’t have control.

So why do I show up? Why will I show up tonight to play on court one against an undefeated team when we are literally last in the league?

Because of the plot. Because in my story, I am not a loser. I will rewrite this fucking story until I am where I am supposed to be. Winning is breathing, losing is dying. There is no rationalization, no grey area. I win in the end. That is the plot.

You can’t win them all, they say.

I don’t agree.

You are the author and the main character. It does not matter if you lose six straight matches — if you say you’re a winner, you are.

Life is a story, and you tell it to yourself. Words matter. The ones you say to others, the ones you tell yourself.

I met a friend in Vermont who asked what I do, why I was there.

“I’m writing a book,” I said. “It’s set in Vermont.”

“Oh! You’re a writer?”

“Yes.”

“Are you good?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I admire that, how you can just say that confidently.”

“If I can’t even say it, who will?”

I don’t to have to believe in myself. But I have to say with certainty that I am a good writer.

What will you call yourself? A writer? A winner?

A good mother, a pilot, a musician, a volleyball player?

If you are a volleyball player, and you don’t make the team, should that stop you? You are a volleyball player! One team, one coach, cannot stop you. This is who you are. This is who you are telling yourself to be.

It does not matter if you lose every match. You are a winner. YOU are telling the story. Stop losing the plot. Show up again. Find another volleyball team. Submit your manuscript 200 more times.

A story is not told in epic moments. A story, a good one, is made of a thousand small details.

Only with a thousand brushstrokes can you create real life. Let every brushstroke you paint stick to the plot. Tell yourself you are a winner a thousand times.

Cue the Superbowl montage of men who started as boys — boys who were really good at football, but who were told you have to be the best to be the best, who were told they were too small or too stupid and who now make more money than a human could need. It will be difficult. That’s the truth. But it will be beautiful. You were made to climb mountains. Don’t give up before you reach the top.

Nick loves quoting this Eric Thomas speech to me: “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful.”

You are Valuable. Act like it.