Issues

Somewhere in the midst of business lunches at Sur and constant planning meetings at work, my team (I have never worked in a place where I was on a "team") has gotten to know me as someone characterized by many "issues".  These "issues" aren't as serious as they seem.  They're more like pet peeves, quirks, and stories I've remembered growing up that have shaped me into the peculiar person they know me as today.  I'd like to share some of these here.

I've never been an athletic person.  I think it's partially genetic and partially because I always associated athleticism with masculinity, and I'd always been a girly-girl - the kind who put things like dollhouses and Easy Bake Ovens on her Christmas list.  In school, I hated P.E almost more than math (but still hated math most).   Growing up, I would find any excuse to skip running the miles on Monday (forged period-cramp notes from my mom), and looked forward to the end of required P.E. after the tenth grade.  I've been very open about this over the years, but when I was in elementary school and more insecure around kids who just loooved P.E., I pretended to be just as enthusiastic.  Just to be fair though, P.E. in elementary school was a lot different from P.E. in middle or high school.  It didn't require earning a letter grade while sweating in hideous clothes (shapeless heather grey tshirts and blue knee length shorts - probably the most unflattering colors and styles I've ever worn) that sat and stank up my locker for a week.  No, physical education in grades 1 through 5 were given as a "reward" for good behavior.  Secretly, I wished that everyone behaved horribly so we could always skip it since for me, P.E. was more of a punishment than any kind of reward.  But my rotten classmates would often behave well and bestow the ill P.E. fate upon me.  So we'd play games like Capture the Flag or Heads up Seven Up on rainy days - games that I had no problem with because I wasn't really required to do much.  But then there were the other games - the games that made me feel sick to my stomach in anticipation of them, mostly because of my inaptitude and the embarrassment that was to come from it.  I would even try to use this sick fear feeling as an excuse to get out of participating with my teachers.  Unfortunately, they saw through these tactics and almost always made me play ("oh just plaaaay, have fun!").  Although it was an excuse to prevent humiliation, the sick stomach feeling was very much real.

These fear-inducing games were ones that put each kid in the spotlight - dodgeball, Steal the Bacon (hate), and one in particular I remember too well - baseball.  It was the third grade.  With the exception of this experience, I'd say third grade was a good year.  I loved my teacher Miss Reilly - she was young and pretty and super nice - and it was the year I got my Samantha doll.  But I was 8-9 years old and raised by FOB parents who probably didn't even know what all-American things like I dunno - spaghetti - were until they moved here in the 70s.  So I knew what baseball looked like, but I had no idea how to play it.  I think Miss Reilly went over the rules and such really quickly, but I still didn't understand it.  I was fine when I just stood far out on the field while the other team hit the ball (batted?) and I would just kind of half-ass run towards wherever it went.  But then it was my turn to hit it and I had to actually perform.  I remember thinking to myself "so I swing the bat, then run?  When do I run?  Do I have to hit the ball?  What if I can't hit the ball and everybody is staring at me?  What if I can't run fast enough?"

I don't quite recall every detail of this particular incident because I'm positive most of it has been pushed into a Freudian area in my brain, but I do know that I either swung the bat and ran, or was already on one of those bases and would run whenever someone else attempted to hit the ball.  But...I wasn't supposed to run, because apparently you're only supposed to run when someone actually hits the ball.  But I did anyway, and all the kids and my teacher were yelling at me, "GO BACK! Go back!"  Go back?  When was I was supposed to run?!  Confused, I ran back to my base.  But then someone would swing, and I would run, and again I'd hear "GO BACK, GO BACK!"  I was so lost.  How do you play this dumb game?  And I remember my dear Miss Reilly yelling at me in her sunglasses and wedge sandals, gesturing with her hands for me to go back, go back.  But I just kept running at the wrong times, because I didn't get the stupid ass sport, and over and over again it was "GO BACK! GO BACK!"  I was maybe only eight years old, but I know my face was all red out of pure humiliation and my mind was filled with WTF.

To this day, I still loathe P.E., and more specifically, baseball.  Yeah, I haven't taken a P.E. class in about ten years, but it's experiences like these that remind me of my disdain towards forced athletic participation.  I'm not sure if I'm the only sad child who has a story like this, but I'm hoping more unathletic children will share their traumatizing stories.  These on-the-spot type games put too much pressure on timid little kids such as myself, whom would have much preferred to have stayed inside playing with Samantha dolls or reading The Baby-Sitters Club.   Baseball is so painfully boring anyway.

I know I probably come off as totally physically incompetent, so just as an FYI (whether you believe it or not) - I was the only girl who was able to compete against the boys in the 7th grade high jump, and I kick ass in HORSE.

But don't get me started on volleyball.