Back and Forth

I feel that there is something I need to say before I don't feel like saying it.  Think about a ball game.  You throw the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  All your life you have grown up being taught that all you do is throw the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  And then, you discover, upon spending time on other fields, that there are other ways you can use the ball--you can dribble it, you can run around with the ball and then pass it back to someone, you can devise a plan to get the ball around the field; some of these moves can even improve your play--possibilities: endless.  You learn these moves until they become a small part of you just like how throwing the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth is.  They become a part of you but you know that deep down, there is no field like home.  You play in these other fields but the home field has never left your body, your heart.  You have this funny and sometimes seemingly naive feeling that you need to return home and experience things like they were before.

But

how does a ball player return and not feel out of place? You know all these new moves with the ball, you try to show other players these moves--some try it out, some like it, some don't.  You realise some moves you've learnt are better than others--you throw some away, you keep some.  But the referee starts to get annoyed and tells you that you have to throw the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth--we've always done that, that's what we're supposed to do, what would people think of you if you did otherwise.  You try for a little while with all your might to throw the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  But something isn't right.  You can't really put your finger on it but there is just something that's a little bit different when you throw the ball.  Once or twice, you notice some players looking at you weirdly.  Maybe you imagined it.  Maybe you didn't.

That's when you step back and think maybe it was stupid to think that things would be like they were before.  You go hard on yourself and wonder if your ego clouded your judgement to think you were better than everyone else. You take another step back and try again.  Be more open, you tell yourself, lose the ego.  You play the game cautiously and throw the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth--can't breat--back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH. You realise that there is only so much you can hold back, there is only so much you can give into before you feel like just throwing BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH is not truly and entirely the real you anymore.  You ask yourself if this is a bad thing. You ask yourself if you are a bad ball player for occasionally having a thought that this very field you have grown up in, sometimes, feels foreign to you after being away for so long. But you don't tell yourself this out loud just in case it would make it sound even more true. 

I feel the ball in my hands and close my eyes to stop myself from thinking too much.  It doesn't work.  So,

I think about what I know to be true.  One hundred percent true.  What do I know about ball players from all the fields I have been in?  

1. I know that a ball player's greatest strength is the ability to learn and grow.  Why should we undermine their greatest strength by stopping at throwing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth?

2. I know that a ball player can't throw the ball without another player on the field.  I can throw the ball in one million five hundred and thirty-five thousand six hundred and forty-eight ways but if the player who receives it doesn't, nothing is going to change.

3. I know that some moves help a ball player and some moves don't help a ball player.  But I also know that for a ball player to know this, they have to first be willing to try.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results--Einstein has a point.

As a ball player, I learnt that we are human first.  We learn, we grow, we make mistakes, and we grow some more.  

As ball players on the field, I learnt that we are not just players, we are a team--a family.  I learnt that a lot of the time, it isn't about the ball or the moves, and it isn't really about the game at all.  

Maybe it was never really about the game. 

So, maybe I'm not doing this just for myself.  Maybe I want to do this for you--scratch that--maybe I want to do it with you.

Sometimes, I just wish that you don't have to make it so freaking difficult, Malaysia.

Love,

on your team, always.