I am abjectly terrible at sports.
Not just sports, but also dancing, climbing, hiking, running, and also just “walking without bumping into anything”.
So when I started to show some promise at playing foosball (yes, table soccer), it felt like a miracle had happened. In my mid-20s, I got good enough to compete on a team - gradually building up my win record at small inter-office tournaments - and then my team went on to place 7th (out of a couple hundred) in a major foosball competition in NYC.
I had a move that people nicknamed “The Lullaby”. I’d slowly pass the ball back and forth between two defenders until my opponent got bored - and then quick as a whip, I’d do a hard twist and flick motion to hit it straight down the line into their goal. They didn’t see it coming - until the loud THUNK! and vibration told them they’d just been scored on. If I close my eyes, I can still feel my wrist moving that particular way. Feel the vibration as the ball thunders into the goal. Hear the wooden beads clink between my fingers as I adjust the score. I remember how a shit-eating grin would stretch the corners of my mouth - because my secret weapon has always been my ability to leverage the way that other people underestimate me. Graceless though I am, it felt like dancing.
They called me Dazzleport.
I’ve been feeling contemplative about why I chose the career path that I’m on. Part of it is that I’m creating something that will impact someone’s life in some way. But mostly? It’s because for some reason I need to do this, and doing it fulfills some kind of purpose that’s so deep that I don’t even know how to articulate it properly. It’s like dancing.
What’s the point I’m trying to make here?
I never would have expected foosball to be a thing I could ever be good at, never would have tried it at all, if I’d had only my own experiences of clumsiness to guide me. I needed to be pushed.
As life continues to push and pull at me, I’m doing my best to remember that the pushing and pulling may guide me into a new dance. One that I’ll hold dear, once I learn the steps. One that will teach me more about who I am and unlock new powers I didn’t know I had.
To all the unknown dances that wait for us.
-Cathy