Tyranny of Time; Tennis, & Drawing

We've already established that my writing is dead (for whatever period of time God has planned).

And that right now I'm focusing on improving my teaching skills with the youth.

And in between that, I'm also focusing furiously on my health.  I'm very excited because I've been working hard these last 5.5 months, dropped 50 pounds, and am eating healthier and feeling healthier then I have in a long time.

Even more exciting, I've reached a stage in my workouts where I can kick it up to the next level.  I just switched from full body workouts to splitting upper and lower workouts (midweek for lower, Saturdays for upper body).  If you've done strength training then you know focusing on one region of the body in a workout demands even more of you.  But that's a good thing.  It means my muscles won't get complacent and they'll be challenged more.

But here's a new wrinkle, which needs a little history.  As a general rule, I hate sports. Not because I'm a girlie girl--far from it.  I'm just not drawn to team sports, and most of the popular sports are team oriented.

Except for tennis (unless you play doubles of course, or play for the Olympics).  And I have always LOVED tennis.  Even used to play up until I turned 31 and moved to AZ. Fast forward 15 years.  Zero tennis--lots of mileage on the road of life, physical and otherwise.  Declining health, life issues, till finally, a year and a half ago, I threw away my tennis racket because I was disgusted with my life and figured never again would I be in a fit state to play tennis. I was sure that part of my life was long over.

Guess what?  A glimmer of hope has returned.  I may be 46 and still wearing some of that mileage, but deep down, a fire still burns to play.  The flickering embers of that desire to play were buried so deep for so many years they were nearly cold and forgotten.

But now there's a part of me that is twitching like my dog's nose on a breezy October morning, wondering if maybe, just maybe I might be able to play tennis again.

It would be very difficult.  Aging bones and joints, still having some weight to lose.  And my eyesight now is even worse than it was then.  But more importantly, that burning desire to play brings me smack up against the greatest hurdle and chief antagonist of my days--TIME.

I don't like to write half-heartedly.  I don't like to teach half-heartedly.  I don't like to weight train half-heartedly.  And I surely don't want to give a half-baked effort to tennis if I return to it.

But there's the rub.  To learn to play good tennis you need to play a couple of times a week (at least those of us who are not naturally athletic and gifted in sports). And some other practice time would be beneficial too.

But where does that fit in with a highly stressful job, working with youth, the writing that I hope someday returns, and the other things I have to do to stay fit and healthy, not to mention all the sordid errands and responsibilities of life?

Why is there always so little time to do what you want?

I absolutely agree with folks who say you'll make time for the things that are important to you.

But what happens when a LOT of things are important to you?  What happens if you want to taste them all?

Sigh.

Double sigh.  I'll have to get to the drawing adventures in the next post...