Losing The Mental Battle

I crouched, in anticipation. Muscles taunt and loaded. Eyes alert and focused. The lonely yellow tennis ball wandered across the net and landed short. I exploded upward and forward, like a firecracker on Independence Day. It’s a forehand. I like forehands. The ball bounced lackadaisically, and drifted upward. Perfect. I whipped my arm around my body, like I have done a million times before, contacting the fuzzy ball in the dead center of my racquet. It screamed across the net and landed on the back half of the baseline. The first thing I felt is relief. The second thing I felt is pride. I pumped my fist hard and shook it in front of my face, yelling the stereotypical “C’MON!” That was when my opponent started to sprint. She ran wildly, on the balls of her feet, with her racquet stretched away as far as possible. My heart skipped a beat. She jumped and the ball tipped her racquet and fluttered to the net, like a lost butterfly. Shock was the third thing I felt. The ball hit the net and rolled down, down, down, to my side. Desperation was the fourth. My eyes widened. My mouth dropped open. But, paralyzed, I couldn’t move. The fifth thing I felt was deep regret. “C’MON!” she yelled with a smile in her eyes. Jealousy was the sixth thing. She doesn’t DESERVE that point! If I were being rational at that moment, I would have thought to myself, it’s just ONE point. No big deal. Instead, anger beamed through my eyes, my mouth scowled, and my blood boiled. Why didn’t you RUN? I yelled inside my mind, You are so STUPID! My opponent smiled when she saw the war that was going on in my head. The fight was no longer against her. Instead, it was physical me v. mental me. And there is no winning in a battle that is against yourself.