Hidden

Seventh grade gym class was my own little circle of self-conscious hell.

I couldn’t throw.  I couldn’t catch.  I couldn’t serve.  I couldn’t return.  I couldn’t dribble.

Despite years of dance classes, when I exited that stale locker room, filled with mustard yellow lockers and cracking mirrors, I became clumsy and slow to react, unable to mimic the movements that looked so simple as an observer.

To make it worse, when I ran or jumped, my overdeveloped assets participated in gym class with a mind of their own.

Eyes followed my every move.

Not actual eyes of course, but the imagined eyes that so many teenage girls feel watching and judging and laughing.

Undeserved shame hindered my efforts in class.  Trying to master athletic feats without any sort of quick horizontal movement or any vertical movement at all was impossible.

I stopped trying.

Defiantly, I stopped dressing for class. 

Defiance wasn’t causing the tears stinging my eyes as I realized what would happen if I continued to refuse to participate.  Agonizingly, I watched zeros appear next to my name in a grade book.

I forgot my shoes.  I forgot my shorts.  I had cramps.  I pulled a muscle.  Excuses ran into each other, ringing falsely through the air and falling with a thump onto the waxed basketball court.

I easily passed every written assignment and test in the class, yet my participation points dwindled into nothingness.

Looking my frustrated teacher in the face soon became impossible.  Bolstered by other girls unwilling to participate, I sat on the sidelines, pretending I didn’t want to mess up my hair or my (non-existent) nails.  We huddled on the outskirts of class, whispering about the very boys I was struggling to avoid.

Accustomed to a different sort of attention from teachers, I wasn’t sure how to act.  I could handle being called a teacher’s pet; I wasn’t sure how to handle the humiliation of bra strap snapping, and I removed myself from the situation.

Used to excellent grades, my parents were angry, especially when I tried to hide my grade instead of admitting how awful I felt during those fifty minutes each day.

By high school, I discovered sports bras, and a weightlifting class for cheerleading took the place of a regular physical education class.  Thankfully, weightlifting didn’t require a swim unit.

But I still can’t throw, catch, serve, return, or dribble.

Thankfully, distance running only requires that I put one foot in front of the other.

In a very supportive sports bra.

The prompt:

Take us back to an embarrassing moment in your life.

Did someone embarrass you, your parents perhaps? Or did you bring it upon yourself?

Are you still embarrassed or can you laugh at it now?

I will do everything I can to help her not experience that feeling of embarassment

or to help her get through it with more grace than I did

I will also do everything I can to help him understand that snapping bras and laughing at self-conscious seventh-grade girls will get him in trouble

big trouble