Serena Williams is having a hard time adjusting to relaxation.
The 41-year-old tennis champ, who announced in August that she’s stepping away from playing the sport professionally to focus on her family, revealed Dec. 28 in a tweet that enjoying downtime off the court hasn't been coming naturally to her.
"I’m currently allowing myself to be tired. Allowing myself To relax. Allowing myself to just be. It’s harder than I ever imagined. I’ve never allowed myself to do any of that before…" wrote Williams, who would normally be preparing for the Australian Open at this time of year.
The 23-time Grand Slam winner revealed in a personal essay published in Vogue in August that she intended to step away from professional tennis to spend more time with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and their 5-year-old daughter, Olympia.
"I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me,” Williams wrote. “I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people.
"Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution," she continued. "I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”
Williams also revealed that she and Ohanian wanted to have another child — and that she'd overheard Olympia saying she wanted to be a "big sister."
“I’m the youngest of five sisters myself, and my sisters are my heroes, so this has felt like a moment I need to listen very carefully to,” wrote the athlete.
Williams, who has been playing professionally since she was a teen, told readers that she never wanted to have to choose between the sport she loved and having a family.
“If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family,” she wrote. “Maybe I’d be more of a Tom Brady if I had that opportunity.”
During an appearance at a tech conference in San Francisco in October, Williams clarified that she wasn't done with tennis forever. “I am not retired,” said the athlete, who was at the conference to promote her investment company, Serena Ventures.
“The chances (of a return) are very high. You can come to my house, I have a court,” she added, laughing.