I was excited for the empty-nest years. Then my husband discovered pickleball
I had great expectations when it came to our years as empty nesters. I had heard it was the best time in a marriage, a period to travel the world, reconnect as a couple, sleep late on weekends unapologetically. But last year, my husband discovered pickleball.
I thought it was just a sport for elderly men who could barely bend over and tie their own shoes, till our townhouse community installed courts. Curious to see what it was all about, he went on Amazon to purchase a cheap paddle and balls to try it out with a neighbor.
“It’s fun,” he reported back. “But I think I need to take a few lessons to get the hang of it.”
So, he signed himself up for an hour-long private, returning home with a $250 paddle with a “power polymer core.” He had no idea what that meant, only that the instructor insisted he needed one. Then came the gear: shirts, hats, visors, shorts, socks, court shoes. Selkirk, Joola, Diadem. He rattled off the brands, combed the internet, followed Instagram accounts, and the boxes began arriving daily. There were grips, tapes, even shatterproof glasses (apparently losing an eye to a rogue pickleball is a real concern). One paddle wasn’t enough; he needed to have several, like sets of golf clubs, “for different levels of play.” He was hooked. More than hooked — addicted.
My friends are as confounded as I am. Suddenly, their husbands are joining pickleball leagues, fleeing to City Pickle in Long Island City, Queens, and The Barn in Westhampton, New York, several early mornings a week. My spouse gets up at 6 a.m. on weekends to play and leaves me alone in bed, snuggling the dog. He even found a league that met Thursday nights from 8 to 10 p.m. When he got home, he flopped into bed, exhausted, barely able to undress himself.
I admit that when all of this began, I wasn’t quite sure the rationale behind my hubby’s new hobby, but I could see the obsession was real. Case in point: There wasn’t a vacation that we booked (including a recent trip to Vegas) where he did not scope out the pickleball free-play situation. He enrolled in an intense clinic in Naples, Florida, (“the pickleball capital of the world!”) to “elevate his game.” It amounted to competing several hours a day, barely coming up for air.
OK, I thought, maybe I’m missing something. “Sign me up for a lesson,” I told him.
On a stifling hot Sunday morning we drove to an outdoor court. My teacher was a 70+ gentleman who claimed he was “one of the OG players in the Hamptons.” His grandson, a chatty teen, was paired with my husband and bragged, “Grandpa taught me everything I know.”
I looked at my husband: He was stretched against the fence like he was warming up for the finals at Wimbledon. His face looked fiercely determined as he assumed his stance and began his game against his high-school-aged opponent. Meanwhile, Grandpa handed me a light paddle and a neon yellow ball. It was smaller than a tennis ball, made of hard plastic and drilled full of holes.
“Give it a bounce,” he instructed. I let it drop from my hand and it hit the ground, barely making it back up above my ankle. “It won’t go very high,” he said. He wasn’t kidding. Then he told me to stand back, way back, and serve. I had taken tennis lessons most of my childhood and raised my arm overhead.
“No! Stop!” my teacher corrected me. “Underhand, not overhand. Like you’re playing pingpong.” I nodded but still smacked the ball skyward, sending it soaring into the parking lot. The impact set off a car alarm. It took three or four more serves for me to learn how to keep the balls inside the court. He decided at that point I might be better at returning, so he launched several balls at me. To reach them, I had to stoop low, almost kneeling, and stand spread eagle to reach in either direction.
I made my way up to the net, dripping in sweat. “Explain something to me,” I asked him. “How does my friend’s 90-year-old father do this all day, every day?”
“They dink,” he replied. “And they stand up at the kitchen.”
Apparently, this sport also had its own language and a scoring system that was impossible to decipher (three numbers?). We lobbed the ball back and forth, back and forth, gently over the net, staying clear of the line of the kitchen (the 7-foot zone on each side). After a while, I mastered the art of the dink, barely shuffling my feet in either direction. It required laser-sharp focus, but I could easily take on a grandpa and hold my own!
On the ride back, my husband wanted to know what I thought. “It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t really understand why you love it so much.” He rambled on about the excitement, the strategy, learning to put a spin on the ball so it drops at a sharp, downward angle out of your opponent’s reach. Honestly, I didn’t get it. I just wanted to go home and shower.
At first, I worried he was going too far. Or worse, that he was using pickleball to escape our marriage. But then I tried to put myself in his neon orange court shoes and think like him: Our 21-year-old-daughter just moved out and he’s missing her. He also recently turned 59, with retirement and senior citizenship looming on the horizon. Both my parents are gone, and his are 86 and 90. The golden years, from where we sit, don’t look very appealing. They’re filled with ailments and memory loss and hip replacements, so why not be active and vibrant while you can? Pickleball gives him an adrenaline rush, a feeling of strength, agility, virility. The games are short and the rallies rapid. It’s also a social game: You can play people at various skill levels and eventually find your “squad.” For my husband, that’s four or five guys who are well-matched, and a network of players in Florida where he dreams of snowbirding. They pat each other on the backs, make dad jokes, and tap paddles when they score a great shot.
That said, none of them are Roger Federer, though they dress the part and carry around assortments of pro paddles in giant backpacks. Our living room coffee table is littered with Thera-Bands, hand strengtheners and finger stretchers. He and his pals are in physical therapy for tendonitis, tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis and a host of other hazards of the game. Yet they play on.
While other wives lament the loss of a partner to pickleball, I think I have finally made peace with it — with a few conditions. No pickle-talk at the dinner table, and no leaving paraphernalia scattered all over the apartment (I tripped over a paddle and almost broke my neck). My daughter’s closet has now become his spare storage, her childhood stuffed animals shoved high on a shelf to make room for her dad’s growing wardrobe of neon shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Dink Responsibly” and “I’m a Heavy Dinker.” I’ve decided to humor him with gift cards to pickleball.com (“all things pickleball!”), and I recently got up at the crack of dawn to take action pictures to frame on his office wall. As a thank you for the support, he bought me a sterling silver pickleball charm on a chain for our anniversary. Every time I see it in the mirror, the little heart carved out of the paddle’s center, it makes me laugh. It’s so … him.
Instead of moping, I’ve grown to enjoy the hours of quiet I get when he goes off to play. I work, I write, I read a novel. I make dates with friends and take a yoga class. I recognize that this is “his thing,” something he’s been in search of for a long time. More than a hobby or a diversion, it’s a true passion, something that makes him excited to get out of bed in the morning. Maybe I didn’t see the benefit at first. I grumped and complained and rolled my eyes. Then I witnessed how he’s become a new man with a renewed sense of purpose. He spends quality time with a circle of male friends. He eats healthier, works more efficiently, is more present when he is in my presence. So yes, I may need to endure a blow-by-blow recap of his latest match and do more sweaty laundry, but he’s happy.
As we grow older, maybe it’s OK if all our interests aren’t common ones. He will never love watching "Bridgerton," and I will never be a fan of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." So be it. After 26 years of marriage, I think there’s plenty of space for us to focus on ourselves as individuals; it makes us appreciate our time together even more. I love learning why he loves pickleball, the way his face lights up when he talks about mastering his drop spin (I have no idea what he’s talking about, but that’s OK). In the end, relationships are better and stronger if each person has things they do on their own. Differences don’t tear you apart; sometimes they weave an even stronger bond between you. And that’s definitely something to dink about.
