My high school tennis coach sent me this photo yesterday. It’s our title-winning Varsity tennis team gathered at his house for a celebration. It’s my senior year.
The girls played tennis in the fall back then, because the boys got the courts in the spring. Thus, the chilly-weather clothing.
Don’t get me started.
I found myself slightly obsessed with this picture. It raised so many questions.
I’m the girl sitting down.
Why did I choose to sit while everyone else stood?
A bunch of the girls are looking in different directions, but I’m looking directly at the camera. What was happening?
My sister is second from left, at the other end of the group.
Why didn’t we stand together? And what is she holding in her hands?
Why am I not wearing a team sweatshirt?
Was I always rebellious, in every way I could possibly be?
I don’t remember winning the championship that year. I only remember being a mediocre player, often choking under pressure. I really never had what it takes to be a competitive person, something I’ve always wondered about.
The thing that really confounded me was this:
In the photo I appear to be a happy person. I’m surprised by how nice my hair looks, how … attractive I appear. Because my memory of that time in my life is that I always felt ugly. I always felt too heavy, not pretty. I remember having bad skin, bad teeth, dull hair.
Or so I thought.
I was having this discussion with a friend of mine recently, someone I’ve known since high school, and we were kind of amazed by the difference between who we thought we were and what others thought of us.
The vast gulf between our own (often negative) self-image and how the world saw us.
My emotions around this photo kept vacillating back and forth between delight and sorrow.
Delight to imagine that I was most likely just fine as a teenager. I looked nice, I was healthy. I had fun.
And sorrow because I wish now that I hadn’t wasted so much time and energy thinking I wasn’t enough.
Smart enough. Athletic enough. Pretty enough. Thin enough. Rich enough.
I guess that’s what we do at that age, right? Maybe through all of life, we compare.
Because, you know, from the looks of this snapshot, this moment in time when we were celebrating something really great and I was surrounded by just the coolest people who have grown up to be the coolest adults: a professor, doctor, architect—the ones I know of, and I sure would love to know what the others are up to—from the looks of this moment I actually was enough.
I was part of a very successful, winning team.
I was surrounded by great people.
I was confident enough to sit while everyone else stood.
I had shiny hair!
I was enough.
Maybe even a little more.
Amen.
This year’s Row For Hope shirts say, “IMPERFECT”, with an orange heart as the apostrophe-
I’MPERFECT. 🧡
You were enough, if not more.