flipflop_diva

I’m four years old and standing in line at the gymnasium where I’ve been taking my weekly gymnastics class. I saw these older girls on television, doing flips and splits and jumps, and my eyes lit up. “I want to do that!” I’d told my mom, and she’d done her mom duty and signed me up.

Now here I am, waiting patiently for my turn to try a real flip on the trampoline! We’ve jumped up and down on the trampoline a lot and tried to walk across the little balance beam that’s lying on the floor and learned how to do cartwheels and somersaults, but today is the flip day. The day I can do all the cool things the older girls on television can do!

I wait as the other kids in my class go, one by one performing their flip with the help of our instructors. And then it’s my turn. I stand where they tell me, and then I jump on to the trampoline and try to contort my little body into a little ball in the air. But even at four, I am too awkward, and my legs are too long and the picture I see in my head does not match the one in reality, and somehow, with the help of the instructors, I do manage to flip over, but legs and arms are everywhere, and I land on my butt and not my feet.

A few weeks later, I quit gymnastics. My mom tells me I’m going to be too tall to have ever made the Olympic team anyway. (This is true. There really aren’t many 5’10” female gymnasts.)

--

I’m fourteen years old, and I’m at an end-of-year picnic with the rest of the drill team and color guard of my junior high school, but I can’t enjoy the food or the laughter or the music. My stomach is in knots, and I feel like I could throw up.

Joining the drill team in eighth grade was one of the best things I ever did. I love the routines and the performances and the parades. I love it so much I applied to be a team captain. I stood up in front of everyone and taught them I routine I made up myself. I performed by myself in front of everyone, even though it was the scariest thing I’d ever done. I had the very first interview of my life with my coaches on why I wanted to do this.

They make us wait till the end of the picnic to announce the new captains. They are talking, thanking last year’s leaders, and I am sweating, hands clenched, afraid to breathe. They announce the new captain for the color guard first. My best friend’s name is called. I hug her, so happy for her. She squeezes my hand. Then they call another name, the new drill team captain. But it’s not my name they call.

I try not to cry, but it doesn’t work. I go home with my mom and sob in my bed. I’d put myself out there and nothing came of it, and my heart hurts with the knowledge.

--

I’m seventeen years old, and history repeats itself in a horrible way. I’m on color guard for my high school and have been for two years already. I love it. It’s the best part of my high school career. I try out to be a squad leader for my senior year. I teach a routine, I do a performance, I have an interview. I feel like everything goes well.

They put names on a piece of paper taped to a wall the next week, and none of them are mine. I ask my coaches why not while trying not to cry. They say they think I’m too quiet. I think that’s a dumb reason, but I don’t say anything. I go home and let the tears flow. I tell my mom I’m not sure I want to do it at all anymore. My mom says the decision is mine.

The next week at practice our coaches tell us they are adding rifles — fakes ones, of course, that girls will twirl along with flags. Only ten people of forty will get picked.

I take home a practice rifle, and I go outside every night after dinner and I throw it and twirl it and spin it until the sun goes down and my mom has to come call me in. I get bumps and bruises, but I cheer the day I spin it in one hand a hundred times in a row without dropping.

I worry I won’t make the rifle team either. I wonder if I really will want to quit. But for the first time, when that list of names is posted, I am on it. This time the tears are happy ones.

--

I’m in my forties now, and there have been more fails than I can possibly count. Sororities I was rejected from in college. Relationships that came to an end before I ever had an inkling something was wrong. Job applications that were rejected, even when I was sure I’d be a perfect fit. A pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage and an IVF cycle that didn’t work.

Some days it feels like all there are is failures. Work I didn’t do a good enough job on, dinners I burned, holiday decorations I didn’t put up. A million ideas in my head for fics I never wrote and books I never outlined. Rough drafts of stories that have no end. Finished products that will never get shown to anyone.

But sometimes I still try. I sign up for writing competitions online — one that is free and a couple that cost money — and I work hard on the prompts I am given. I’m not expecting to ever win any of them, but when I move on — to the next week or the next round — I’m glad I tried. I’m glad I put myself out there, even though I’m scared of failing.

I’m glad I tried playing hockey even though I was horrible at it. I’m glad I joined a different sorority after the first one didn’t work out. I’m glad I kept dating people until I finally met my future husband. I’m glad we did IVF one more time and ended up with Ellie and Riker.

I’m glad for most of the failures in my life that have ultimately led to something better.

--

Ellie is six years old, and we stand together at a rock climbing gym that we’re at for her friend’s birthday party. She steps into the harness and lets the instructors buckle her up. She looks up at the wall towering above her as her friend, the birthday boy, starts to scale it.

She catches my eye and rushes to me, her face a mixture of terror and sadness.

“I don’t want to go!” she whispers, and I can see she’s shaking a little. “It’s too high!”

I want to tell her to just try, that she can stay low and doesn’t have to go all the way to the very top, but instead I ask, “Are you sure? They won’t make you go high if you don’t want to.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to.”

I tell her it’s okay, and we take off her harness, and we sit and watch her friends go until the birthday boy’s mom tells her she can go play in the bounce house till the other kids are done. She perks up immediately. A few minutes later she is in the bounce house doing somersaults and showing off her cheerleading moves.

Part of me wishes she would have tried, that she would have faced her fears and discovered that maybe she liked it, but most of me knows she’s only six years old. She has many years ahead of her to fail and succeed at many, many things. I only hope that she at least learns to try.

Non-Fiction.

This was written for

therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me or any of the other amazing contestants! You can find all the entries here. Voting should be up Sunday night!