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Produced by the I-Lab at WBUR Boston.

From The New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is Modern Love.

Stories of Love, Loss and Redemption.

I'm your host, Megna Chacrabardi.

It's easy to single out the biggest decisions you make in your life,

but this week's essay by Anne Leary is about little choices.

The ones you might not think about very much in the moment,

but that end up slowly changing everything.

It's called Rallying to Keep the Game Alive,

and it's read by Connie Nielsen.

She starred in movies such as Wonder Woman and Gladiator,

and you can see her in the new TNT show I Am the Night.

When I took up tennis, my husband was happy to play with our two children in me,

as long as we didn't have to play by the rules.

As Dennis repeatedly explained to us,

playing by the rules placed him at an unfair disadvantage

because he didn't know the rules and he didn't know how to serve.

Instead of learning the rules,

he wanted to play a variation of tennis he had invented with a friend of his.

Their game involved no serving,

and they complicated, but curiously malleables set of rules

...