An Adversary “All of the good you believed would arrive suddenly has. All of the bad that is coming certainly will.” - Hanif Abdurraqib “See, the thing is, you only got to fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't gonna never be slow? Never be late? You can't plan through no shit like this, man. It's life.” - Avon Barksdale Since I was a kid, I have had an adversary. When I mean a kid, he was there in my earliest memories. He probably was there when I was born. And as a true adversary he was everything that I wasn’t. Both on the outside and in. He had lionlike yellow hair and blue eyes as opposed to my dark features. His parents were from the big city, met in highschool and enjoyed university together. My parents were from the inland and they met through an ad in the paper. He was confident with himself and people around, while I struggled with who I was and with my connection to people. He was full of life and I was afraid to live it. He felt like joyful chaos. I was at most unknowing order. All of this was apparent when we were growing up. And maybe most apparent when me and my adversary shared a stage, performing in an end of year show for our parents. We were little, only at the start of our story. And because I was so little, I don't remember any of it but thanks to my love for unnecessary nostalgia, I found the CD of our performance and analyzed every second of it. In this recording, the adversary is center stage, having fun, waving to his mom, dancing with others around. While, I am off to the side. I have this look of fear and disgust in my eyes and it seems like tears might come raining down at any second. I am pulling people around, telling them to stay and not join the fun. This was how things were between me and my adversary. All that I was and could be still didn’t have the touch of life that he had, has or hopefully will continue to have. As we established, my encounters with my adversary didn’t end there. I saw him often and all around. We shared schools, playgrounds and rooms. He was relentless, a one-of-a-kind adversary. And as the years have piled up, our battles have continued. We would go against each other in any and everything. We would duel on the pitch, be on two separate teams and try to win as hard as we could. We would compete in our, created by our people or otherwise, childhood games. We would, on rainy days or when we were tired, opt to battle in video games. Picking out teams, creating our own versions with our favorite players and having a playoff series or perhaps a final. And of course, we battled most in our favorite playground: the basketball court. We would sneak into courts nearby to play one on one. And these showdowns would go on for hours on end. It would encompass days and weeks, there was no limit on how long we might have played. Wherever we were, whatever battleground we chose, those moments mattered. Even though I'm not a huge fan of this grand idea of winners and losers and their difference, here for us winners and losers mattered.The winner got bragging rights until our next battle, so whoever got that chance would use it to get up in the ither's face, talk trash and raise trophies of our own creation. Meanwhile, the loser made excuses, blamed it on an off day and vowed to get his revenge back, promising himself he wouldn’t endure this charade once more. Overall, I have lost way more against my adversary. But, those losses only made my victorious moments way sweeter. Every win felt like a hero conquering its lifelong dementor and I enjoyed that. I cherished my wins, because I knew a loss was near. At any moment, I could be called upon to a rematch and lose and just like that I would be back again on the familiar side of defeat. Yes, I could have won the rematch and maybe the next one too but still that loss would arrive soon because it had to. Nowadays, I try to bring this approach to my own life outside of the court. I'm not successful most days but I still try. I have to try because I know for us humans, losses are often and wins are far and few between. I know moments of great joy can be stripped by a phone call, a single sentence or a decision made by someone else in which we had no control over. I know most losses arrive easier than wins, destroying what took great effort to build. I know wins are never promised while losses are inevitable. I know all this but I also know mulling over losses doesn’t grant us the escape and freedom we all need. To get over this, to get over losing, I try to feel my grief, my sadness and my losses and follow them. Follow them where they might take me. Maybe, along the way, I’ll get lucky and see some of those who I have lost, hear their voices, get a chance to share our favorite moments once again. Maybe, I’ll see an old friend, remember how their face looked through my eyes, apologize and thank them for everything, say goodbye because we grew apart even though we thought we never could. Maybe, I’ll see my parents when they were younger, trying their best to teach me what they knew and run-in with my old self, a version of me that was brighter and more hopeful, ask about his life, ask about his battles with his adversary. We must feel our losses, in order to elevate our wins but more importantly, to move on. For me, feeling my losses is the only way forward, because I can’t forget. And through this way I live to see another day. This way, I know I’ll get another chance to win much like I did as a kid. I also realize some, probably most, don’t get the chances they want or need because sometimes the worst people win. They win despite our best efforts, they win regardless of what we might think and know. Truth be told, what to do in these moments, still elude me. I don’t think we have anything to stop the machine churning other than ourselves, our people and our ability to hope, together. And I don’t mean an empty hope. A hope that allows us to look at the past and plan the future together. I mean a hope that fights, participates even when times are darker than we could have ever imagined. I know hope is brittle, it needs help, care and we must feed it. However, I also know the most miraculous thing about hope is all it needs is one win to burst out, to make people feel its warmth. One faithful heave up to the sky, one body shot when the opponent least expects, one swing of the arms to get everyone to believe again. Again I emphasize, we must know that losses will arrive and they will be much more often than wins. But with hope surrounding us and our people, we can continue. We can bask in its glory and enjoy being together with those who we love. Now might be a good time to mention my adversary was also something else: a companion. He was there at the start, and had my back at every moment. Just as he was a one-of-a-kind adversary, he was also a one-of-a-kind companion. And all the battles we had against each other, we also enjoyed together. We had a trio consisting of me, him and an older kid while playing football. When playing 2K, we managed the same team and alternated between halves. Even when we were going against each other in different sports games, we had players and teams that we both knew the other wanted, so we picked them accordingly.But of course, just like our battles, the basketball court was our preferred choice for a partnership. Here, in theory, we could combine what made us different to get a chance to win together. The companion enjoyed the game at a slower tempo, he knew what he wanted on the court and got to his spots with ease. While my game was all about pressure and relentless drive. All I had was one tempo, fast. I would try and try until I got what I needed. He could score from anywhere but mostly choose to shoot from mid range with some threes and floaters mixed in. I mostly preferred to play from the inside and close to the rim. He probably shot way more than he should have, whereas I most likely shot less than I should have. Over the years he has added some new tricks to his game but the overall philosophy has stayed the same. On the other hand, my game has changed with time, going through different stages. Looking at this, on paper, we were opposites and on the court we should have complemented each other without much trouble. Yet, the actual reality was far from that. On and off the court we were very different, and all of this created a puzzle everytime we played together. And, I truly liked solving that puzzle each time, because each time the answer was different. Each time we balanced what we individually wanted out of the game so we could enjoy our time together. I understand that’s what teams do, that’s how friendships are, yet I think what made our puzzle special was that we were not great at solving it most days. We would walk away frustrated, complain about what the other did wrong and vow to noy give an inch the next time we played. Our grand promises and frustrations would vanish the next time we stepped on the court together. This was a new day and we had a puzzle to solve and a game to win. We have now grown up, but I still feel like that puzzle has continued. We don't get to share the court as often as we would like but now our puzzle has fit into our real life problems. We’re in different countries, with different lifes and different goals. Now I’m trying to imagine when or where our paths can cross again, so we can battle together or against each other once more. I hope my adversary knows I will be there trying to win with all I got. And I hope my companion knows I am on his side with all I have.