Loss & Gain

I started life as an athlete. By age eight, I gleefully ran the four safe blocks that my mother mapped out. The next year, I rode my bike. By sixth grade I was the fastest runner in my elementary school and one afternoon, I rode forty-two miles and wasn’t even winded. I excelled as a fast and furious basketball guard, but quit because of the rule that I had to stop at half court and watch my target make baskets. For fun, I practiced the long and the high jumps, but our school had no girls track team. Fie on that, since my conservative parents refused to get a lawyer to try to put me on the boys’ team.

In seventh grade, I followed my older sister into cheerleading. A quiet child, I discovered all the yelling helped me find my voice. By tenth grade, several grown-ups involved in picking new cheerleaders told my father that I was the best for squad tryouts. Once in my thirties, one of those men even expressed his deep regret over the unfairness of what happened. The girls on the varsity squad convinced the coach to let them help pick the new squad. They outnumbered the adults and didn’t chose me. I’ll never know why, but I think jealousy. I felt devastated and shock, and I cried all night.

Weeks later, I attended the first meeting for the school musical. The director boomed out, any people in sports, leave now, cheerleaders leave now. Destiny had paid me a visit. In my junior and senior years I had the lead in the musicals and senior play, and to this day, I’m a performer. I thank my lucky stars that those girls ruined what I thought was my future path. Although I don’t know any adult cheerleaders.

Horrible things happen, and then wonderful things happen, and we are forced to follow newly opened paths. In the midst of horrible it’s hard to hope for wonderful, but it comes.