Stage Exit

Selfishly, we imagined that Ash would be with us for years: a name, a face, an Aussie to revere. We were looking forward to her next tennis conquest, to watching the unique repertoire of skills in her armory and delighting in the coolness of her persona under pressure. Right now, it feels a little like a movie that ends abruptly - not remotely in the way we imagined or hoped. Yes, perhaps we feel that ‘the happily ever after ending’ has been snatched from our grasp in an untimely way; the script has been rewritten in the most unconventional manner.

Yes, she’s done it again. Ash Barty has failed to follow the formula for an athlete at her prime. She has chosen family connection over dizzy success (and grueling training and travel regimes) and we feel both admiration for her courage and sadness for our own unanticipated loss. Here is the most delightful example of someone who has life perspective, here is her trademark timing projected into another space, and here is a lesson for us all: you don’t have to follow expectation. Your children won’t always follow your expectations, either.

A number of years ago I fielded a call from my cousin – a neurological physician who, along with his wife – also a medical specialist, were lamenting their eldest daughter’s choice of senior subjects. She had not chosen the same subjects that they had studied at school, the subjects that they had loved and the ones that had placed them both on a trajectory to study medicine. I was bemused. Perhaps as a teacher I had seen this scenario play out repeatedly, or perhaps I was surprised that my cleverest of cousins had failed to predict an outcome, possibly for the first time in his life. And yet his daughter has thrived in her field of law and I doubt that she has ever looked back and wondered about those subject choices that caused her dad so much angst.

We don’t have to follow the path that’s been written for us – either explicitly or implicitly. Therein is a bittersweet lesson for us as parents. It takes such courage to pursue the road less travelled, doesn’t it. Yet Ash Barty makes her stage exit look like it is the natural outcome. After all, she’s done it before. She had a tennis sabbatical for nearly two years when she chose cricket over tennis because the grind of a sport, she excels at, had overwritten her wellbeing and sense of purpose. There are salutatory lessons for us all in her exit from centre stage. The grass on the court of success is not as green as it appears from the sideline. Winning at the highest of levels is a commitment that is not necessarily sustainable, certainly without significant compromise. Leaving that which you love takes courage.

Sport teaches us so much about life and Ash Barty has transported those lessons to another level. She has stopped us metaphorically in our armchairs as we sat yearning another tournament win, vicariously, of course. As magnificently as she entered, she has exited a champion. She takes with her so much more than monetary wealth. Ash Barty has exerted the power of choice and demonstrated the courage to resist expectation and the will to determine the next scene in the script. May we as parents, be as gracious when our own children step at right angles from the path we anticipated, built, and formulated – consciously or unconsciously. Their departures won’t always be from the pinnacle of success and they may cause us, in the shock that the unexpected brings, a need to regroup and reimagine the future. Therein lies our need for courage.

How do we best support a stage exit?

Dr Linda Evans | Principal