For literally no reason at all I’ve been putting off finishing this blog. Like so many things in my life I over think them into the point of stagnation. It’s a form of self harm. I find it hard to love myself and this can show itself in so many ways – most of the time it just stops me from doing the things I love cos I don’t think I’m worthy of the privilege. It’s sad and it’s fucking exhausting. It’s been over a year since I arrived back from the first part of the Van Am tour and almost immediately after I got home I fell from grace. I can’t sleep and so here’s the story of coming home:
I arrived home early from my trip. Just a couple of days early, but I thought it would be sweet to surprise Jess. I had organised for my little group of studio friends to arrange lunch under the guise of one of their birthdays and then hopefully I was going to make it back in time to pull up and surprise her. That plan was immediately off to a bad start about 10 minutes after getting off the ferry. Stand still traffic. Not just crawling, basic bitch, traffic, like, everyone out their cars and in the road, walking to petrol stations to buy water for people, traffic. Luckily my bed is in my car so I just jumped in the back and took a nap thinking about how shit England is. Id travelled nearly 9000 miles round Europe and no trouble whatsoever.. urghhhhh fuck. This is already too wordy, im becoming too wordy. Basically I came home and I felt shit. The surprise was great but as soon as it was done and we sat down to eat I immediately felt the weight of being home, back in England and once again having no purpose to my life. Id gone from having 1 knife, 1 fork, one plate, to a house with a draw with 20 forks, 20 knives, a cupboard full of plates a girlfriend and a dog, and for a sensitive soul like me this was really overwhelming. I also felt so guilty for feeling this way “oh you feel shit from having the best time of your life?” make that make sense.
The thing is ,I started to fall for the trap. The idea that maybe I should try and make a living from this idea. Could I find a sponsor? should I start a youtube channel? What if I found the addresses of the head quarters for the brands and walked in challenging ceos and brand managers to matches? I even put together a fucking pitch deck. FUCK OFFFF. This idea has NEVER been about that but I still felt the pull, completely ignoring the fact that commodifying this idea would rip the sole out of it instantly. watering it down into meaningless self serving (wheyyy) bullshit for others to have opinions on. Anyway the main reason I decided it was a bad idea is because i’m not sexy enough and im fine with that.
One day, after weeks of moping around, I receive an email. To be honest it was the kind of email I imagined being inundated with when I first started fantasising about this idea in Paris. But this was the first. It read:
Tom,
xxxxx
Fuck yes. Who was this? how good were they? I hope its Andy Murray!!!
It wasn’t. It was a guy named Ben and after a few emails we arranged a date and I packed up the van and headed to Cambridge. The whole drive up I was excited but also scared. I had no idea what I was walking in to really! Typically, Im the one seeking out the match, this time Ben had found me. I pulled in to the car park and was greeted by a man fist pumping and pointing at the van, shouting VAMOS! Bens a character, He took me in to the pro shop and introduced me by saying ‘here he is!’ and the staff telling me Ben had been talking about me and the project to them all non stop. It felt really nice. Ben then offered me a pasty he’d bought me as we were walking to court, I thought he was insane but I loved it. We played our match and he beat me comfortably, backing up the confidence of his email. He admitted to the camera during our match that him and his friends had watched my other highlights and dissected my game to construct a game plan. I cant imagine it took them long to figure out i’m shit at tennis.
After the match we talked for a while and Ben told me him and his family loved reading the blog, he was encouraging me to keep writing it, he opened up about his own mental health struggles and that he experienced a similar nervous system breakdown.. all of this connection just through tennis. It was in these moments I realised I didn’t need to do anything more with this project than I was already doing, I just needed to keep doing it!! Walking off court Ben told me he was playing a grass tournament in Cromer in a few weeks and asked if I wanted to play the doubles with him… urrr does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? YES PLEASE! (RIP).
A few weeks later I packed up the van, girlfriend and dog included, and we made our way to Cromer. When Ben found out we were camping he decided to camp too. Cromer is a week long event so that was a big decision considering Ben would almost certainly make it beyond the first day. Arriving at the club we signed in and were told we had been drawn against the number 1 seeds – one of which was the best player in a 100 mile radius. whatever the fuck that means. I was gassed. Ive never played on grass and I hadn’t played a tournament since the Road To Wimbledon tournament I played when I was 11 (which was held on clay?!?!?) Any way, Ben suggested we hit some balls so I could get used to it. Grass is sick, Its so special, a lovely green carpet that surprisingly, to myself and ben, suits my game pretty well. My theory is because it bounces low its actually how an average height player would hit a ball. I was very excited and kept saying to Ben “ive got a good feeling you know, I think we can cause an upset” After hearing this come out of my mouth a few times Ben pulled me aside and said “I think I need to do a bit of expectation management with you, were gonna get battered.”
We had a lot of time to kill before our match which I filled with a few nervous poos and watching some of the other matches. There was one guy playing with no shoes. He was tall and sexy and had long hair, Like a tennis playing Jesus. At change overs he would put a towel over his had as he sat cross legged, the tips of his middle finger and thumb touching, meditating for what seemed like ages. His opponent had the patience of a saint. At one point he literally took his shirt off but that was a step too far for the officials and they scurried over to tell Jesus off. Pure blasphemy. Then we were called. Oh shit its happening.
We lost the toss and our opponents decided to receive. Ben took the reigns and came out of the blocks all guns blazing. We went 1-0 up. we were winning!! then it started to unravel. At about the fourth game I had a real wobble. I became hyper aware of how I was not supposed to be here. Not just cus Im so obviously the worst player in the match but also because I looked different, was dressed different, I had odd socks on. This was my Bill Ackmen moment. I dont believe Bill had the same self awareness I had, but I didnt have a billion pounds to console myself.
I said to Ben ‘Im freaking out man, I shouldn’t be here’
He replied reassuringly ‘Mate, Im so happy you’re here, this is awesome, you’re doing great’
We played out the match and I racked up three highlights: The first was a backhand cross that beat the best player in a 100 mile radius. The second was a forehand cross that beat the net player. And the third was a lob off the backfoot that Andy Murray would be proud of. When this dropped in Ben shouted ‘chest bump’ and ran at me. Despite all this we lost 6-2 6-1 and my time in cromer had come to an end.
The next day, before we headed off I shared a cup of tea with ben who was leaned on his car writing notes about his performance the previous day and what he wanted to focus on in his singles match today. I imagine it looked something like this.
– Never ask Tom to play doubles again.
He also shared with me a little motif/logo he had made which read: Be kind to yourself, motherfucker, with the word motherfucker crossed out. I think we are kindred spirits really.
Anyway, Its now 3.30AM and all thats left to say is -Thank you Ben, You lit a fire back under this project and realigned my perspective on the whole thing.
Love Tom
