WOOHOO! (This one's for you Martha)

(To understand this post, read this post first.)



Victory is just as sweet the second time around. Even when it's not against cheaters. (Although, for the record, they did try to cheat, but there was a line judge this time.)





(I'd like to bear my testimony that line judges are true. AMEN!)



My daughter won her second match by the skin o' her teeth. So now she plays for the regional championship tomorrow. MARTHA, ARE YOU SO PROUD? (Don't mind me and Martha. Martha was just my daughter's tennis coach in Hawaii. That's all.)





So after I posted about her first win I grabbed my boys and my dog and jumped in the car. We were racing to the 2nd match when my hub called and said, "Have you already left? Because she's down 3-0 in the first set."





"I don't care," I said. "We're coming." Then we popped in Shakira and started fist pumping with all of our might.





Halfway there my hub called again. "She lost the first set 6-1."





"Well, get her head back in the game. We're almost there!" I told him. And then we pushed replay and pumped out fists harder.





See tennis is such a head trip. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Tennis is just like life. The line between seizing an opportunity and letting it slip away is paper thin. And things can turn on a dime. If you give up. Or out. Or in.





My daughter has sacrificed too much to get to this place and I wasn't about to let her go down without a fight.




When we showed up she was up 4-3 in the 2nd set. My in-laws said, "Oh, she is playing terri . . . "



I told them to talk to the hand and walked away. Briskly. Because life is too short to walk away slowly. Not with so much on the line. And anyway, it was my daughter's day. Shikira told me so. And I had to tell my daughter so.





So I pushed past the other team's loud mouth coach and got all up into the fence and started singing at the top of my lungs. Today's your day! I feel it! You paved the way! Believe it!



Then she hit me in the head with a ball and told me to shush.



J/K peeps. None of that actually happened. Martha woulda sung it though. I'm pretty sure.





Anyways, it went back and forth and back and forth. My daughter fought for every point until finally she won the 2nd set in a tie-breaker. And then she won the 3rd set too.



Shakira was right.


Told ya so.


On the way home my daughter laid in the back seat and, in between charlie horses, got all existential on me.


"Whoever thought of tennis is a genius, " she said. "Because it's just like life. You go up and down. And when you're down you have to fight to get back up. But you have to go through the down to appreciate the up. And it's all up to you to win the battle."


"Waka Waka" I said.


"Huh?" She said.


"I dunno, but that's what Shakira says."


And then I had her rub some Bengay on my shoulder, because all that fist pumping can take it's toll on a dummy like me.





P.S. Despite the aerobics teachers best efforts, my daughter also got Academic All-Region.





Was that too Braggety Anne?