The thing about growing up is that once you find yourself at a comfortable age and think you have everything figured out, life comes along and issues a whole new set of changes and rules. One minute you’re riding bikes with your friends and having a good time, and the next those same people are ignoring you because you’re not cool enough for them anymore. Middle school life became way too focused on fitting in and getting boys to like me, which was difficult enough with my good grades, glasses, and braces. Plus, I still had a huge chip on my shoulder since I wasn’t ever any good at the popular team sports. It had never really dawned on me that my concern was largely unwarranted and stupid, but since I’d been getting more and more Type A by the minute it really mattered that I was good at everything … so I had continued to let it bother me.
Once I’d entered high school, all of my athletic shortcomings seemed to be magnified. Apparently, I’d morphed into a female version of Les Moore from the Funky Winkerbean comic strip. (For those of you unfamiliar, Les was a helpless nerd who seemed to be stuck in the worst gym class ever for all of eternity. It was like the Groundhog Day of gym classes; every single class he’d be asked to climb a rope. It made absolutely no sense, but man did I relate to this guy.)
I knew things were off to a terrible start when I showed up for the first day of gym class my freshmen year wearing the wrong clothes. Since I was so concerned with doing the wrong thing, I made sure I was super prepared for my first day of school. That included making sure that I wore the right gym clothes. It turned out that I was the only person who was actually wearing the school’s old gym uniform; nobody told me that everybody had stopped wearing them years ago. I believe that at one point when the class was getting too loud and out of hand the gym teacher actually pointed at me and said, “Hey, if you all don’t shut up I’ll make you wear a uniform like Anne’s.”
If that wasn’t a bad omen, I don’t know what was.
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