What's Your GiG?

I'm trying too hard to write this post.  I've had an amazing day.  I've learned from David and Pamela, I've loved the stories from Caroline and Carissa. I want to write a post about gratitude but I'm not sure where to start. That's surprising for me. Gratitude is usually the first stop on my "happy" train.

So I'm pausing, taking it all in. Truth, I ran straight into a brick wall recently.  And by that I mean a full frontal face splash into what I thought was destiny, but really was only an exit sign on the highway. Pissed and confused, I eventually re-grouped.  But here's what was waiting for me, the understanding that I was the problem.

I was the problem starting back when I was 9 years old!  Something stupid and monumental happened when I was 9. This thing that happened started a strange chain of events that can neither be predicted nor repressed.  I will tell you this thing. But I hate it, still.

I wanted to be a cheerleader.  Like with a passion I didn't even know I possessed.  I was a fat ugly girl.  I had no friends at Holy Cross School, but all the fun popular girls were on cheerleading and I wanted to do it. Cheerleading was big business back then, and there was an A Squad and a B Squad.  I knew I could never make the A Squad, hell, they did splits, sommersalts, I couldn't even do a cartwheel.  And, that was why I failed to qualify the first time I tried out.  No cartwheel, no team.

So, I practiced and practiced.  I was all over the parking lot at lunch break, using the curbs to compell myself into a cartwheel.  I couldn't do it. No matter how hard I tried, how much I watched the other girls, why wouldn't my body do what I wanted it to do.  Let me tell you these were not fun lunch breaks...I was snickered at..."look, kelly belly thinks she can be on the team."

Well, this is a fairly old story, right, so I won't bore you with it.  Suffice to say, this was personally agonizing but I was determined to do the cartwheel because that was THE requirement to make the B squad.  Day after day, I fell. I couldn't do it. I couldn't understand why.  Other girls could, why couldn't I?

I still remember the day it happened.  This girl who I don't even recall her name, she wasn't in my grade, but popular, broke away from her friends and came over to me on the parking lot/playground and said, "You're not locking your arms."

No one talked to me out there, so I was confused, did she mean me?  She said it again, "You're not locking your arms." She began to explain what she meant and to show me.  I tried again and fell, but she seeemd so sure if I did this thing, this locking, I'd be able to do a cartwheel.  I tried again, and again. And then, just like that, for the first time ever in my life, I did a cartwheel!  Geez louise, I did a cartwheel!!!

It felt like magic, I did this thing that no one thought I could do. The news spread, even though this was pre-blackberry, info still got around like wildfire, and soon, it was whispered that I was trying out again for the squad.

Imagine that, kelly belly, trying to be a cheerleader.

Stay tuned for the next part of this story.......