day 2: gym class hero.

i ran 3 miles today without stopping.

and (other than a semi-successful vegan mac & cheese cook off that i may talk about at a later date), it was pretty much the highlight of the day.

i understand that most people can run further (certainly faster) than 3 crappy, labored, sweat drenched miles clutching my inhaler for dear life. but, for me, it’s kind of a big deal.

growing up, i was that quintessential skinny armed asthmatic type who was always botching the “presidential physical fitness exam” and getting that muffled groan of disappointment when i was assigned to someone’s team in gym class. in fact, i was the only 6th grade girl who was cut from the softball team. bizarrely, they would kindly allow me be the “manager”, and required me to keep score for a game which  I HAD NO IDEA HOW TO PLAY.  R-B-I-don’t fucking know. actually, i still don’t.

so yeah, my lack of physical strength and coordination were actually slightly less of a problem than the fact that i had no idea how to play any sport ever. i was always traveling with the basketball or grabbing the soccer ball with my hands. i didn’t know (still don’t).  and moreover, i didn’t care. and the only times i would ever rue the fact that i had decided never to learn the rudimentary rules of floor hockey were in those moments when i was standing in the middle of the gym, paralyzed with fear, having every single person in the room screaming at me to do the thing that everyone else already knew how to do. 

and there was my gym teacher, sitting smugly on her folding chair, whistle in hand, letting them berate me for not knowing how to do the thing she had bothered not to teach me. she would just yell “good hustle” to the other kids from the sidelines and completely blank out the fact that i was being mercilessly harassed. i remember her cornering me in the locker room after class one day to talk about my “bad attitude”and screaming “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE!!!” right into her face.

i was an overdramatic and oversensitive kid for sure, but in this particular instance, i was right. she didn’t know what it was like. she apparently was born preprogrammed with all of the rules for all of the sports that ever existed- just like every single other person in my tiny catholic school class. i mean, for fuck’s sake, she went to college to be a gym teacher.

in her deep and abiding love for physical fitness, she neglected to realize that those of us with poor upper body strength (muppet arms) and questionably functional lungs might not share her passion for flag football. and that our parents, who watched us wrinkle our noses and sigh with boredom whenever the red sox were on tv, bought us microscopes and paintbrushes instead of baseball gloves, because they knew that forcing us to be sporty would have had even more grave repercussions than making us get braces  in 8th grade or share a room with our sister.

she couldn’t imagine a person who didn’t know about or care about sports. so every time i covered my head and ran away from an oncoming volleyball, she was filled with as much frustration and agitation as all of my peers. their shouting and insults seemed fair to her. she was so far out in sporty space that she couldn’t see the damage she was doing.

and, i was damaged. i had fucking physical education PTSD! i got a 72 in gym sophomore year (a “pity pass”, i’m sure) because i repeatedly refused to play kickball (traumatic 5th grade incident). i almost didn’t graduate because i was a quarter short of phys-ed credits (i demonstrated my skill in the sport of hysterical sobbing to get my way out of that one).

evil gym teacher had mocked and neglected me, booted me out into adolescence thinking that i was a physical failure, that i was incapable. and i spent the next 10 years believing her, and avoiding athletics completely.

around 2005 (who even knows why), i decided that i was going to run.

it was a mess. i was panting and sweating and dry heaving. i could make it about 1/4 of a mile before i had to walk. i never had successfully completed “the mile” in gym. 10 laps around the cafeteria gave me side stitches and panic attacks. i would limp in, last place, just after the girl who weighed 300 lbs. in 6th grade. but at 28, i had a new determination.

i didn’t entirely realize where this determination had come from until the day that i successfully ran my first mile without stopping (there may have been involuntary fist pumping). in that moment of victory, i only wanted to see one person- EVIL GYM TEACHER. i wanted to shake my victory fists and her and say “*BAM*, i’m not such a loser after all! i CAN be sporty! (bitch)”.

so yeah, running 1 mile or 3 miles isn’t so fancy for most people, but accomplishing that small thing reminded me that i’m not useless. and that i can be as athletic as i’m willing to try to be.

so, a note to gym teachers current and future: there is a handful of us in every single class.  we’re not lazy. we’re not bad “team players”. we’re fucking terrified. we don’t always have control over our limbs, and we don’t always know the rules of the games that you take for granted. but, if you have the patience required to show us how it’s done, we CAN learn. and if you have the kindness to stand up for us while we’re being publicly shamed for sucking at sports, we might actually WANT to learn.

i don’t exactly hate evil gym teacher anymore (although i did for a long time).  mostly, i’m sad. i’m sad about all the kids i know she bulldozed over the years in order to get to the ones with the real “potential”. and, i’m sad about those 22 years i lost thinking i couldn’t do it.

but regret is a mostly useless emotion, and today (even though i haven’t really run in almost 3 years), i still made it 3 miles without stopping. maybe tomorrow, i’ll do 4. it may have taken me two decades, but i’ve finally found my own hustle.