Let's Try Again

returning to what you love after fear quietly made your world smaller

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Let’s Try Again

10 years ago I blew out my left calf.

That’s not the technical term for what happened, but I am not a doctor.
It happened in the fourth game during an afternoon of pickup basketball in a middle school gym in Austin, Texas.

I was 27, which is old if you’re comparing yourself to 17, but still young if you’re comparing yourself to anyone with a child in college and a drawer full of ibuprofen.

Two hours in, I went up for a layup, and something in my calf said, “We are done.”

I landed and couldn’t put any pressure on my leg.

Lying on the hardwood floor, I messaged Dr. Google, “Something in my calf just exploded, what do I do?”

It told me to seek immediate medical attention if I experienced:

• A loud “pop” sound or sensation.

• Inability to put weight on the leg.

• Severe swelling or bruising.

• Significant numbness or tingling in the foot or calf.

Check, check, check, check.

A few guys helped me to my car and I drove to the ER. When I got there, I called the front desk and asked if someone could come help me inside. They said I’d need to call 9-1-1.

“I’m… right here,” I told them. “Like, next to the ambulance.”

“Yes,” they said, kindly but firmly. “You’d still need to call an ambulance.”

“I can see you! I’m waving. I’m the one in the car,” I said.

“I understand sir, but you’ll need to call 9-1-1,” she repeated.

It would have cost a few thousand dollars to travel about 50 feet from my parking space to the entrance.

I took a deep breath and did what felt both heroic and pathetic: I hopped on one leg into the hospital.

“Hi,” I said at the desk, trying to sound casual—not like I was in the worst pain of my life. “I’m Tanner. I was just waving to you from my car. I’m the one whose calf stopped working.”

And in a way, something else stopped working too.

Since then, I’ve been careful. Careful in the way people are when they have learned something the hard way. Careful in the way people are when they are trying not to feel that kind of pain again.

But what I am starting to see is that careful is often just a polite word for afraid.

Afraid of pain or being sidelined again. Afraid of that unfortunate betrayal when your body decides it has limits you never agreed to.

The few times I’ve tried to get back on the court, I’ve hopped off early, feeling that familiar pain in my calf and hearing the same thought on repeat:
See? This is why we don’t do this anymore.

Injuries don’t just live in your body. They take up space in your mind. They whisper about what might happen. They rehearse worst-case scenarios until you believe they are inevitable. Worst of all, injuries quietly narrow your life by a few degrees at a time until you don’t notice how small the circle has become.

And my circle had become small.
Smaller than I realized.

But then, a few months ago I was added to a group chat with a few guys from church. Every Sunday at 6 PM, they play basketball.

After blowing it off for weeks, I finally went.

And I haven’t stopped thinking about the night since.

Before I had the dream of being a writer, I dreamed of being in the NBA.

Most of my childhood happened on a basketball court. If I wasn’t at youth group, I was in a gym somewhere, pretending I was Michael Jordan or Steve Nash.

And then, after a knee surgery and a few other injuries my junior year of high school, I stopped playing organized basketball.

I handed the coach my jersey and never looked back, except for every day since.

When I stopped playing, I slowly stopped recognizing myself.

That’s when the fog rolled in. I felt distant. Unmoored. Like I was watching my life instead of living it. I missed the sweat, the rhythm, the way your lungs burn and your mind goes still. I missed the camaraderie, the sacred language of “I’ve got you” and “ball up” and “one more.”

I missed falling down.

I missed getting back up.

I played intramural basketball in college, and a few pick up games in the years following college, but since that day in that Austin middle school gym, I haven’t been myself.

Until the other night, at a YMCA in East Nashville with 7 other thirty and forty something year old guys.

Somewhere in game 3 or 4, I channeled my inner Steve Nash and whipped a perfect pass to a teammate cutting to the hoop.

He floated it in and yelled, “Good pass, Tanner!”

One sentence.

That’s all it took.

Suddenly I was back in a high school gym. Before injuries. Before the fog. Before depression. Before my calf quit. Before waving to the ER receptionist from the parking lot.

And underneath that voice, I could hear my dad from the bleachers:

“Good pass, Tanner!”

It’s strange how memory works. It just shows up. Sometimes through a smell, a sound, a phrase, and for a moment, the past and present come together.

Our culture seems to have a love for nostalgia, but for something to become nostalgic means you’ve moved on. You cannot be nostalgic for what is, only for what no longer is; without time, without life lived in-between.

And I’ve lived a lot of life these last 10 years.

And maybe what I’ve been needing to hear is someone tell me, “Good pass, Tanner!”

I’m not entirely sure why I’m telling you all of this.

Maybe I’m reminding myself that fear is a poor foundation for a life.

Maybe I’m remembering that the things we love don’t always disappear, they just continue to invite us to show up again.

Maybe I’m learning that healing isn’t about returning to who you were at 17, but about becoming someone who’s willing to try again, even if it’s slower, even if it’s messier, even if you have to stretch for twice as long and ice afterward and pray endlessly that injury will not find you.

Maybe healing looks less like going back and more like stepping forward with a limp and a little courage.

Maybe I’m just saying this:

Say yes to the thing that scares you.

Something happens when I have a basketball in my hands.

Something I have forgotten.

It’s the same thing I feel when I’m writing a poem, or holding my son’s hand, or laughing over a date night with my wife, or singing on a Sunday morning, or standing at the edge of the ocean as the sun clocks out for the day.

It’s that quiet, inviting sense that I am alive.

Not who I used to be. Not who I thought I would be. But here and alive.

In some ways, it’s a beautiful glimpse of heaven on earth, and you cannot convince me I won’t play basketball in heaven.

But for now, it feels like enough to lace up my shoes on a Sunday night, step onto the court, and let myself chase the wonder of my youth.

Where life once shouted, We are done, it might, by grace, learn to say, Not yet. Let’s try again.

—

And good news!

I did not blow out my calf.

… but it does appear I tore my meniscus.

Funnnnn.

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