Borderline, Feels Like I'm Going To Lose My Mind, You Just Keep On Pushing My Love Over The Borderline

--"Borderline", Madonna

It started off by Miss Marion asking me last week if I ever tried any sports. I told her that when I was younger that I was played AYSO for a year, played some tennis, and played a little basketball. I was never any good at them and I never really went anywhere with them. I've never been any good sports. It's probably why sports have never really been good to me. Sometimes I look at people like Breanne, who has that ethic to run three miles a day for five days a week. I get really down on myself that I never had that resolve to stick to a sport. I mean--I feel better now that I'm going to the gym four days a week, but that isn't a passion for me and that has only been an activity I've engaged in the last three years. If anything, the sport I like the best is bowling, I told her, because it's something that I can pick up any time I please.

That's when she told me that she used to love playing tennis with her sisters. The three of them, sometimes with their mom, used to head down to the local park and just play for hours. She said she used to dream of being a tennis player someday--not with any real authority to make it happen, but the silly dreams of somebody uncovering something that makes them happy.

Then she went into how her sister Nora a few years later started getting really serious about it. She tried out and made her local high school team. She started winning... a lot. She found her passion. Toby couldn't have been happier for her.

But it all came to an end when she fell in love with someone on the boy's tennis team. And when that came to an end, she couldn't stand to be around tennis anymore. She gave it up because "she'd rather lose something once than feel like she was losing him over and over again every day."

"I don't know if I've ever given up something for somebody I loved. Not really," I told her.

"Never?"

"I don't think so. Certainly nothing so tangible as having to quit something."

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was a time when I did. While I was dating Tara, it was the first real relationship I had that where I didn't feel like pulling away. Instead, I was almost too clingy. And because of that, I had problems when somebody would speak something bad about her. It wasn't so bad at work because they never said anything too horrible. And it wasn't too bad with Breanne because, well, she's her and she knew how much I liked Tara. Nope, the worst I had it out was with two people. Heidi and Jina's mom.

"I don't even know what they said exactly, Toby. I just remember they were casting dispersions on her character in an attempt to show support for me. However, all I heard was somebody was badmouthing her."

"Then what happened?"

"I cut them off like I always do when I get into a really big fight. I don't want to hear what they have to say and I leave, never to return."

"How horrible."

In truth, I was ill-prepared for having to work so hard for someone. Breasy was easy. She made it easy to go as slow or as fast as we wanted to go. With Tara it was like I smitten and I had to do everything right away. I didn't have a good perspective with her. I thought I was in love. Maybe I was. But nothing was good enough for her. I felt I had to be perfect for her and being perfect meant choosing her over everyone else. She never asked me to. She probably never wanted me to. But I did it any way. I put her before people I've known for longer than her. Heidi was the worst, because she was really likable. I already had fucked up with her by being too clingy with her also. I had barely patched things up with her and then I had to go leave her by the wayside for somebody I had just barely begun to date. The same thing was Jina's mom. I had fucked things up with Jina. I had barely got on speaking terms with her again. Then her mom had to say something unkind of Tara. So I stopped chatting with her, which probably pissed off Jina, and I never heard from either one for ten years.

"In the end, when Tara and I broke up, I was sad for that. But I was also sad because I sacrificed on my own two good people that I never really had to. So, no, it wasn't tennis or something I did. When I choose to give up something, it's usually people."

"The things we do for love, right?" Toby said, summing it up perfectly.

"Exactly. Sometimes I don't know if I'm capable of taking love in stride. I always seem to sacrifice more than I get. One of these times I'm going to have to try it in moderation... just to compare."

"Let me know how that goes," I heard her say before moving on in the conversation.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers