A friend and I were watching a girl on our tennis team play an opponent from another school.
“Damn, she’s such a five,” my friend said to me.
“What do you mean, “she’s a five”? I asked.
“She’s so even keel and unflappable, ” my friend said.
“Yeah, you’re right she doesn’t play emotionally. She keeps her composure. She never gets “too high with the highs, and too low with the lows”, I said.
“Exactly,” my friend said. “I’m Italian and I’m menopausal. I’m not a five. At all.”
“I’m not Italian and yet I’ve never been a five,” I said. “I’m a five until something sets me off, and then I go from five to ten in nanoseconds,” I said, not so proudly.
We watched the “five” girl, play her match. Her matches tend to be long and close, but she almost always wins them. She never tries too many fancy shots. She remains steady and even and reliable and determined and polite and kind and pleasant. She just stays focused on winning each point. Nothing seems to phase her.
When Five (I’ll call her that for now on) got off the court, I congratulated her on her long, hard-earned win and I relayed what my friend and I noticed about Five. “Is that your natural state? Do you have to work on being so calm, cool and collected? Are you always so self-possessed?” I peppered her with questions. I, a middle-aged Five-to-Ten-Rocket, was trying to learn skills from a young adult solid, locked-in Five.
“I think that’s just how I am. I don’t see the point in getting upset about anything,” Five answered. Then she smiled at me sweetly and handed me a Snickers bar.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.