I play in a tennis league on Friday nights in the winter and spring. The matches begin at 10:00 p.m. and usually end after midnight.
You read that right. The other night I made dinner for my family, then went to a wedding party, and got home in time to dress for tennis and head to my match.
And everybody knows I like a drink. Why do I willingly weekly walk through this dusty dry Friday evening?
Because tennis is an incredible joy, rediscovered in my mid 40s, after not having played since I was a middling doubles scrub on my high school tennis team.
I'm better than I was in high school. Despite my little tummy, I might be faster, too. I sure am faster than guys my age.
I once overheard one of my opponents grumbling to another guy in the league, about having to play me. "That fuckin' roadrunner," he said—and the other guy knew exactly who he meant.
I don't have a lot of videotape of me playing, but this is how I feel when I'm playing—one month from age 50.
My niece Brooke, through gritted teeth on the back of my motorcycle, asked me why I like to ride. Without thinking, I answered her true: "Because when I'm on a motorcycle I feel like I'm in my twenties, and sexy."
If anything makes you feel like that—playing poker, dancing, surfing, cooking a gourmet meal, having screaming sex with a monitor lizard a Chinese swinging basket—do it tonight.
I'd join you, but tennis playoffs are starting, and I'm the top seed.
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