Being true, sports

I'm drinking dark coffee at 10:22 in the morning, waiting for my brother Will to stop by to visit- he's getting his braces off finally, after having them for a while and then ripping them off with pliers after not being able to play his trumpet. It was one or two weeks before my parents noticed. Will just didn't smile. Will is living in Cedarville, in the U.P. this summer with his girlfriend's family. I am supposed to be volunteering at Heartside, my mom had places to be and took the car, so that I could watch two episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in a row- one of them was when Will gets his tonsils out- finish a Morgan Freeman movie called 10 Items or Less (I highly recommend it for anyone looking for something different to watch) and dance to music in the living room.

What I wanted to discuss in this post is the idea of being true to yourself. I feel like some rational-thinking friends would say that its not hard to do this. Just be honest and always listen to yourself. I am very big on honesty, but I'd have to say that while listening to myself isn't a problem, actually communicating my viewpoints and needs to others in a way that they can understand can be difficult. I don't know, maybe I'm making a big deal of this, and I know that I probably do well with this most of the time. Lately though, it seems like acknowledging, "Hey, this is really me. This is what I think, and who I am. This is what I like," is hard. Sometimes I can't even make sense of why I feel uncomfortable, or upset, until later, after I get a chance to really reflect.

For instance, just yesterday my friend Justin took me disking- something that he loves and does every day. I love that he finds so much happiness from it, and I wanted to see what it was like. But when he wanted me to try it, I froze up a little, and I'm afraid that he thought I didn't care and wasn't putting much effort into it. The truth is that I equate sports with fear, judgement, and ridicule. I think back to some of the worst moments in my school years- middle school gym class, when we had our volleyball unit, and the best players chose teams, and it was public knowledge which kids were good at serving, defense, or offense, and which kids just totally SUCKED at everything.

So there's little me, a dorky smart kid who wore weird 80's clothes and crazy accessories to school everyday, hair almost down to her butt, a little chubby, and scared. Guess who always got picked last for teams, was TERRIFIED of getting hit in the face with a volleyball, and hated the ridicule and smirks on kids' faces when her serve couldn't even make it over the stupid net? Literally screwed everytime she walked out of the locker room doors, in gym shorts with the name of a lacrosse team that she didn't play on (are you kidding?) but chose from a second-hand store because of the nice shade of light blue. These kids just wanted to win the volleyball tournament that involved a rotation of all the teams playing against each other- and magically the popular girls all seemed to be amazing at sports. NO ONE wanted her. She always walked out of that gym with her face burning. And then she would try to change back into her funky ass outfits, comb her hair, and continue with the rest of the school day. At least in her classes she knew what the hell was going on. At least the other kids could see her.

Fast forward to my first semester of college, Acting 1, where my fierce prof. Deb had us play a game that's great for learning how to receive energy from fellow actors and to pass it on in return. The game involved standing in a circle and throwing little BALLS. We were required to CATCH them everytime. Shit. I swear I couldn't catch a baby tossed off the roof of a building if mine and the baby's lives depended on it. So my prof. soon found out that I couldn't really participate in the game, and I just smiled and looked cute on the edge of the circle. Sigh.

I did have fun disking at the park, and I admire people who love sports so much. So much. But I'm being honest with myself, that the only thing I'm capable of doing is powerwalking to good music, and dancing (I used to be a bit of a ballerina). That's it. That's me being true to myself.