"In Review"

San Antonio, Texas

"In review," the two words boldly printed across a screen page I have exhausted over the past several months. A Statement of Purpose, where the clarity of life direction was unbeknownst before the words formed order and understanding on this page. The GRE Score submission that caused a once sworn-off declaration to math, married to a five-pound book inundated with algebra, calculus and geometry. And then, the writing samples, recommendations, resume, transcripts and application, all deliberating intentional review of personal success, personal failure, skill sets, fleeting passions, lifelong interests, and ultimately, a defining awareness of a fitting future.

Now, and for the next couple months, my status, at least for graduate school, will be, "in review." And as I breathe out a sigh of relief, having birthed a better since of self-awareness through this process, as well as sense of completion, the spirit of "review" is causing me to analyze personal revelations revealed through the application process, which inevitably brought me to take this first step towards graduate school.
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The beginnings would be far too convoluted to scrape back through, so, rather, let me start with the final push. Tennis. Strange, how a sport, especially one I had given up, could be a source in a decision to further academic pursuits. But there was a newness to the game that served as an introduction into other, new thought patterns in the same, old areas of my life.

There were two tools that created a mold in my young, developing hands, a tennis racket and a writing pen. These interests, far beyond any others, have become blatantly apparent while digging through life information for application requirements. However, after playing tennis through college, the struggle to keep battling internal and external pressures as well as the fatigued, one-dimensional thinking caused me to leave the game without the slightest desire of return.

Those intentions were not changing, as far as I was concerned, at least, I had no plans for them to. But, I was in Africa, and a woman running an after-school program for children of prostitutes, invited me to their weekly tennis clinic. Tennis, of all sports, in Africa, where court access and equipment seemed far more complicated than the paper-made soccer balls I had seen the children kicking around, but, they had a connection, and I thought, "What are the odds?"

So, I showed up, and on a court split by rope horizontally so all 40 kids could fit, I walked around, advising when needed, stepping in to hit occasionally, but mostly, admiring. Their faces were happy, they had next to no mechanical training but their vigor and intense focus with every ball in their line of stroke was mesmerizing. It wasn't necessarily the game that was so appealing to them, it was the ability to learn something new, to challenge themselves and see what they're capable of, and, they were having fun, as they were being given a rare opportunity.

I came home, unaware of any significant spark this experienced stirred, but I was looking to engage in a new city I had recently moved to when I remembered a random connection I had made at coffee shop. This man was in engineering school, and a former tennis player, who was at the time setting up a tennis clinic with the San Antonio Amputee Foundation. His interest was prosthetics and their functionality in sports. I reached out to the Amputee Foundation and was zealously welcomed to help coach these clinics.

And that's where significant, dramatic change of thought began to shift, so much so that the feat of putting words to this area of my life has yet to be touched, in fear that the immeasurable impact would fail to be accurately described. But I will try.

I showed up that day, as a volunteer, but I guess my instantaneous love was noticed, and I left with a job. I now coach a team of men, with some sort of amputation, above the knee, below the knee, at the hip. Some have prosthetics, some use a crutch, but all have the standing ability to play the game. Some of their amputations happened a few years ago, some decades ago. Some were a result of an accident, some connected to diseases.

But that day, and every day since has reshaped this false idea of "boundaries" I had created around the life I knew. One of the men, amputated from the right hip down, without a prosthesis, glided across the green court, diving, reaching, leaping for balls seemingly out of his range. "Pushing yourself too hard" was foreign to him. The joint in his only hip was overused, but the look of determination across his face when a ball came to his side of the court was not aware of pain. At times I'd tell him to take a break, but he would keep going. I am not sure if this was always his nature, or if this fierce ambition was developed the year before when he and a group of amputees climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. As I watched him throw the racket from one hand to the other, getting a better reach on the ball, I asked him whether he was right handed or left.

"I am whatever hand I need to be," he said.

He was not bound by the right hand-left hand mobility restrictions commonly known. It was as if his mind thought differently. As if he was free from such limitations.

"I am whatever hand I need to be." These words ran through my mind for days, leaving me unsettled when mirrored to my own attitude. I reflected on the circuitous life path my journey seemed to be. How the countless jobs, numerous interests and wanderlust never quite added up to one clear direction. I did some meditative digging to discover the thread connecting me to all these experiences and interests. Writing. It's been my thing since I was a little girl, desperately decoding the mysteries of life at the foot of my bed, night after night. Now, life had me seeking and unveiling curiosities in new and compelling ways. But what was keeping me from fully pursuing this and believing writing was my thing?

​I travelled so I could tangibly research and tell stories, I took mindless jobs to free up space to write on the side, I eventually became an English teacher when money pressures became real, combining my passion for reading and writing with my yearning to shape lives, also knowing summers would free me up to travel and continue this pursuit of cultural and social conscientious journalism. But why was I working to do what I love instead of making what I love to do my work?

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing," Theodore Roosevelt once said. On a deep level, I craved work worth doing, I wanted to work hard at it, and I knew the chance to find that kind of fulfilling work was out there. Perhaps I knew, and wanted this so much, that the fear of not having it stopped me.

In the past, I thought about making journalism my career but I told myself "I didn't have enough experience." For some years now, this hidden urge to go back to school and specialize in a field of journalism compelled me, but "I didn't think I was intelligent enough" to take the GRE and get into a good program. I remember orientation as an undergrad, selecting from a choice of majors, seeing journalism and saying, "you mean I can actually study something I love to do?" I had that same feeling recently, giving myself permission to believe I can actually follow the career path I love and find worthwhile.

My player's words, regarding his ambidextrous tennis game, "I am whatever hand I need to be," became the mantra motivating my next step toward this field I am finally, passionately choosing. If I want to be a journalist, then I need to do and be whatever I need to in order to make it in this field. I don't just want to be a fervent blog writer, I want to learn from the best in the field, because hell, you only live once, why not master a craft?

So, pursuing graduate school at one of the best journalism programs in the state and country was my goal. And with that, means taking the GRE and meeting a highly academic school's standards. And that, meant learning math. It also meant learning advanced vocabulary and analytical writing, but math was the one that scared me. My instinctual response to seeing this school's requirements would say, "Can't. I am bad at math, won't meet the standard." But, my player taught me to say, “I want to be a journalist, so I am good at whatever I need to be good at.”

So, I married math. I turned on my favorite tunes, brewed some hot tea and embraced a section of my mind that quite possibly had never been engaged in such a way. I found myself enjoying the absoluteness in mathematics. Once you learn the rules, and bank them in your mind, it never changes. There was a right and wrong answer, not many things in life are this black and white. That intrigued me.

I am over the "can't" in my life. It's incredible the cages we place around our possibilities with this one word. The second this word is removed from our vocabulary and thought pattern, our mind creatively begins problem solving, "So, how can I?"

These men I coach, they defy "Can't" every single day. But they are unique. There are many people in their same situation who believe their life is over, or that it's reduced to living in a chair, or at best, standing with very limited mobility. At some point, my players said, "I am going to do whatever I need to do in order to have my life back."

​My good friend and player, Mike, was not even an athlete before his accident happened, but the day he left the hospital after his amputation he said he "felt a drive like never before." He became a competitive mountain biker, a para-olympics athlete, an ice- sledding competitor, and recently, an advanced tennis player.

At the end of 2017, I got to take Mike to the Adaptive Tennis World Championships, and again, was overwhelmed by the spectrum of athletes across the world defying physical and mental limitations, and with this came the privilege to be apart of this sphere of incredible individuals and the honor to represent the San Antonio Tennis Association and San Antonio Amputee Foundation at such an event. I watched top players in their country, some with very serious adaptations, swinging the racket with power and authority difficult for any advanced able-body to return. I sat down with these individuals, hearing incredible stories of tragedy, refusal to give up and persistent drive to defy the impossible. They too, come to this event and are encouraged and fed by the testimony of one another.

University of Texas at Austin Graduate School of Journalism, International Journalism Program focused on the Middle East seems like a dream, and at one point would have been considered a league of academics I could never envision myself a part of. And, I am not certain it will be a part of my story, but for the first time ever, I am taking steps without limitations, believing even the dreams are possibilities.

Imagine the realm of potential without the boundaries. If we no longer allowed ourselves to create barriers, the "But I can't," "But I am not good at..." or "I don't have the resources, time, capability, skills..." so on. Imagine we live in a world where limitations do not exist and dreams manifest into reality. Or perhaps, what if our mind lived in that world?

What if our own "Can't" is the only thing stopping the impossible from happening?

For now, I am "in review," and in a few months, there will be a decision. Regardless of that decision, I am going to be a journalist, and a damn good one at that, because, I will do, and be, whatever I need to in order to reach my goals.