My track coach and I have an interesting relationship. Before I joined the team my freshman year, I worked hard (or at least I thought I was working hard) in the preseason. When the season started, I expected to be on the coach's good side as they had watched me dedicate myself to the sport and progress as an athlete. It was dumb, really. It was ignorant. Track is unlike most other sports in that the stop watch and the measuring tape does not play favorites. It doesn't matter how much work I put in or how often I helped my coach clean up after practice because, when the outdoor season started, I was not one of the best jumpers on the team. I wasn't awful but I was a freshman on a team that would eventually win state so I received little recognition.
I cried a lot that season. I thought my coach hated me when he told me to see an eye doctor if I wanted to pull volt and I thought I might quit to join Dance Company when he put a less dedicated freshman on the section line-up over me. I wanted to be the best girl on the team and had a very hard time accepting the fact that I was a freshman and I was awkward and I simply could not jump as far or as high as the other girls on the team.
I didn't high jump my sophomore because it hurt my back and I was still scared of the coach. Instead, I focused on triple jump and walked away from the season with a first place conference medal. Sophomore year was the year they moved my best friend up to varsity and, still itching in my frosh uniform, I was undeserving jealous. I don't remember much else of my sophomore track season.
As a junior, my coach asked me to try high jump again. It hurt my back a lot still but we had a different coach so I nodded my head and found my way back to the mat. After about a month of practice, my new coach and I decided that I had been jumping off of the wrong foot. I switched which side I took off on and found myself clearing much higher heights. My new coach, unlike my old one, was excessively encouraging and always told me he was proud of me even when I didn't jump well. I didn't cry at all that season.
This year, when I heard my old coach would be coming back to run high jump practices, I was hesitant. Although I had worked with him a lot in other events and in the off season, his face reminded me of how unsuccessful I had been in the past. When I looked at his black backpack and judging tape measure all I could see was everything I had failed to be. But I had already added "qualify for state track meet" to my bucket list so I preceded.
I have spent the majority of this season comparing myself to the other two varsity high jumpers. We are all pretty evenly matched but not a practice goes by when I do not feel inferior to them both. My coach would often single one of them out for something or pull one of them aside for additional advice and I was jealous of the attention, thinking I had worked hard enough to receive my own special attention. Sometimes, he snaps at one of them and it shows me that he still cares about them as athletes enough to want them to be better, that he hadn't given up on them as I assumed he had on me. I am still paranoid of my coach putting one of them in a post-season meet over me even on days I jump higher than them.
On Monday, my coach noticed. I was so worried about other girls taking off stronger or leading with their hips and it effected how I jumped. My coach tried to give me the same advice that he has given my teammate all year: "Julie, I don't know what else to tell you. You are your own worst enemy."
I took his words to offence at first. I thought that he wanted me to get out of my head and stop thinking too much. I figured he was telling me that I was being too hard on myself and took that to mean that he didn't think I was worth constructive criticism. I thought being my own worst enemy meant that he wanted me to just calm down about high jump because he didn't care enough to keep yelling at me or trying to help me.
But, being my own worst enemy also means that no one else is. Maybe my coach told me this as a form of advice on a level deeper than how well my back arches or how hard my leg drives. Being my own worse enemy means that no one hates me as much as I do. As twisted as that may sound, it has been extremely comforting in the past couple of days. If I hate myself more than anyone else does, than why am I worrying about what my coach or my teammates think? None of them think about me more poorly than I do and, if I can learn to be okay with myself, than they all must be too.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Speechless
I forgot to make a toast tonight.
I was in the company of five wonderful girls and I forgot to make a toast. We drank sparkling grape juice (scandal!) out of my mothers fancy toasting glasses and, as I was hand washing them a few minutes ago, I realized that I forgot to put them to use, that they held a beverage but never held our attention.
At first, I was upset. I thought that these fancy toasting glasses had gone to waste because they were not used to their full potential. More than that, I felt like a shoddy hostess for not calling verbal attention to the greatness of the situation, for not thanking my friends for joining me tonight and every night.
But, as I drained the sink and placed the toasting glasses back in the cabinet, I decided that a toast would not have been fitting for tonight. Sometimes we are put in situations that are so simple and so unbelievable that trying to put that feeling into words is a waste. Some nights, like tonight, we just have to look around at the people sitting next to us and realize that no clinking of glasses or nodding of heads could make this situation any more perfect.
This is a picture from when I ran away from my track meet to eat food earlier today.
I was in the company of five wonderful girls and I forgot to make a toast. We drank sparkling grape juice (scandal!) out of my mothers fancy toasting glasses and, as I was hand washing them a few minutes ago, I realized that I forgot to put them to use, that they held a beverage but never held our attention.
At first, I was upset. I thought that these fancy toasting glasses had gone to waste because they were not used to their full potential. More than that, I felt like a shoddy hostess for not calling verbal attention to the greatness of the situation, for not thanking my friends for joining me tonight and every night.
But, as I drained the sink and placed the toasting glasses back in the cabinet, I decided that a toast would not have been fitting for tonight. Sometimes we are put in situations that are so simple and so unbelievable that trying to put that feeling into words is a waste. Some nights, like tonight, we just have to look around at the people sitting next to us and realize that no clinking of glasses or nodding of heads could make this situation any more perfect.
This is a picture from when I ran away from my track meet to eat food earlier today.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
This day
This day does not belong to me
Nor equally to you
This day belongs to nobody
Not any, all, or few
But still, this day, I claim as mine
"It was great, I loved it so."
And you, the same, did label it
"One of the worst kind that I know"
But this day was not ours to define
As "too quick" or "dragging on"
This day, it was, and that is all
It came and now it's gone
Nor equally to you
This day belongs to nobody
Not any, all, or few
But still, this day, I claim as mine
"It was great, I loved it so."
And you, the same, did label it
"One of the worst kind that I know"
But this day was not ours to define
As "too quick" or "dragging on"
This day, it was, and that is all
It came and now it's gone
Saturday, February 16, 2013
On having friends
I've always said it - that I take my friends for granted - and I always thought I meant it too. I probably did mean it but, I never fully understood what this meant until very recently.
When I wake up in the morning, it is usually from a dream co-staring my friends. Getting dressed, I pick out outfits from a closet full of gifts, shirts my brothers bought and necklaces my friends made. I pick up a friend or two on my way to school and park in a lot among familiar cars. In class, not only do people acknowledge me, but they tend to do so in a positive manor - complements not insults, smiles not indifference. I receive high fives and hugs and "hey how you doing?"s in the hallway, even when I am walking alone. At lunch, I usually have a place to sit and always have a person to talk to. I have never eaten lunch in the bathroom or in fear of being noticed. If I am struggling in a class, either a friend or a teacher will offer to help me out and, if I am succeeding, I usually receive some form of recognition. After school, I go to track practice or advocate production or student council meetings, all full of people who are recognize my presence. I do not fall asleep at night without at least one friendly text message or lengthy phone call.
Needless to say, I have contact with other individuals. More than that, many of these individuals may be considered friends and, of them, I hope at least a few enjoy my company. I have people in my life.
But, this is not always the case. More so than I had previously recognized, there are a lot of people who have nobody. There are girls who eat lunch in the library, boys who opt for the nurse over gym class, people who go through the day alone. And, rather than make an effort to change this, I have been so wrapped up in the people I already know.
Because my friends are such genuine and altruistic people, I often think about who else they could touch without my presence. If I ate my lunch in the library, there would be one more spot for someone new. If I stopped saying "hello" to them in passing periods, they could save their breath for someone better.
I do not mean to sound like leaving my friends would be an easy thing to do. It wouldn't. As mentioned plenty of times in past posts, my friends are amazing and I live in constant awe of their greatness. So, I know how warm friendship feels. It is a feeling that everyone deserves to feel and to feel often. This is especially true because I know most people deserve the friends I have more than I do.
I guess what I am trying (and failing) to say is that I am really lucky to know people and even luckier to call them my friends. I wish everyone could feel as loved and acknowledged as I do and would, in a heartbeat, sacrifice my social lifestyle to give someone else a chance.
Sorry this post lacks any rhetorical merit. This is an unedited blog so y'all will have to deal. Yo.
When I wake up in the morning, it is usually from a dream co-staring my friends. Getting dressed, I pick out outfits from a closet full of gifts, shirts my brothers bought and necklaces my friends made. I pick up a friend or two on my way to school and park in a lot among familiar cars. In class, not only do people acknowledge me, but they tend to do so in a positive manor - complements not insults, smiles not indifference. I receive high fives and hugs and "hey how you doing?"s in the hallway, even when I am walking alone. At lunch, I usually have a place to sit and always have a person to talk to. I have never eaten lunch in the bathroom or in fear of being noticed. If I am struggling in a class, either a friend or a teacher will offer to help me out and, if I am succeeding, I usually receive some form of recognition. After school, I go to track practice or advocate production or student council meetings, all full of people who are recognize my presence. I do not fall asleep at night without at least one friendly text message or lengthy phone call.
Needless to say, I have contact with other individuals. More than that, many of these individuals may be considered friends and, of them, I hope at least a few enjoy my company. I have people in my life.
But, this is not always the case. More so than I had previously recognized, there are a lot of people who have nobody. There are girls who eat lunch in the library, boys who opt for the nurse over gym class, people who go through the day alone. And, rather than make an effort to change this, I have been so wrapped up in the people I already know.
Because my friends are such genuine and altruistic people, I often think about who else they could touch without my presence. If I ate my lunch in the library, there would be one more spot for someone new. If I stopped saying "hello" to them in passing periods, they could save their breath for someone better.
I do not mean to sound like leaving my friends would be an easy thing to do. It wouldn't. As mentioned plenty of times in past posts, my friends are amazing and I live in constant awe of their greatness. So, I know how warm friendship feels. It is a feeling that everyone deserves to feel and to feel often. This is especially true because I know most people deserve the friends I have more than I do.
I guess what I am trying (and failing) to say is that I am really lucky to know people and even luckier to call them my friends. I wish everyone could feel as loved and acknowledged as I do and would, in a heartbeat, sacrifice my social lifestyle to give someone else a chance.
Sorry this post lacks any rhetorical merit. This is an unedited blog so y'all will have to deal. Yo.
Friday, February 8, 2013
On reputations and habits
Another stupid metaphor:
I woke up from a dream on Monday morning of my friends and I at prom. We were all dolled up, enjoying ourselves, and complementing each other on dresses, shoes, hair, the like. It was a dream that made me feel girly so, while getting ready for school, I decided to borrow (steal) some of my mom's eyeliner. I primarily reserve eye makeup for special occasions so, unlike many girls my age, its application was far from second nature. I traced the path just above my eyebrows, trying and retrying to make the line as straight and as perfect as possible. After 5 or 6 attempts, when my lids had stopped twitching and my hands found the right way to hold the pencil, I was satisfied.
I felt special wearing eyeliner to school. In my first period class, my teacher noticed the change by calling me "muy bonita" (luckily before class started to save me from any embarrassment). Although some of my friends were unable to pin point exactly what I had done ("you look so different today! Did you change your hair?), a couple did take direct notice. My best friend's face lit-up when I saw her that morning. "Looks great, Jules! You should do that more often!" She said to me.
So I did. Tuesday morning it only took me 3 attempts to trace my lids and by Thursday I finally felt competent enough with the pencil to make my blond teenager stereotype proud. But, just as I was becoming more and more used to using eyeliner, people were becoming more and more used to me wearing it. Eventually, nobody said anything of my makeup. I went from a girl who was wearing eyeliner to a girl who wears eyeliner in the course of a week.
I got to thinking about what this meant this morning. Looking down at the pencil in my hands, I twirled it naturally between my fingers and wondered how something smaller than my pinky could change the way my entire personality was perceived, how people and myself saw me. I thought about what it meant to be an eyeliner girl and decided, though it was fun for a few days, that was not really who I am.
So, feeling dramatic, I turned the faucet left and scrubbed viciously at my eyelids. I rinsed and flushed and blotted but, when I finally pulled the towel from my face, a small trace of brown still remained.
It was a smudge, really, nothing substantial. For the most part it looked like I was not wearing makeup at all. But it was there.
Now, 12 hours later, the smudge is still faintly visible. Because, as it seems, makeup does not easily erase. Even a few days if a habit will stick around longer than you expected.
Until that smudge goes away, I will still be a girl who wears eyeliner. I will still look like I'm squinting when I hold eye contact, my eyelids will still feel droopy when I lay my head to rest. I do not know how long that smudge will be there; I hope it's not long. I also do not know if I will ever dabble in makeup again; my guesses are I probably will. But, next time, I hope I invest in makeup remover.
I woke up from a dream on Monday morning of my friends and I at prom. We were all dolled up, enjoying ourselves, and complementing each other on dresses, shoes, hair, the like. It was a dream that made me feel girly so, while getting ready for school, I decided to borrow (steal) some of my mom's eyeliner. I primarily reserve eye makeup for special occasions so, unlike many girls my age, its application was far from second nature. I traced the path just above my eyebrows, trying and retrying to make the line as straight and as perfect as possible. After 5 or 6 attempts, when my lids had stopped twitching and my hands found the right way to hold the pencil, I was satisfied.
I felt special wearing eyeliner to school. In my first period class, my teacher noticed the change by calling me "muy bonita" (luckily before class started to save me from any embarrassment). Although some of my friends were unable to pin point exactly what I had done ("you look so different today! Did you change your hair?), a couple did take direct notice. My best friend's face lit-up when I saw her that morning. "Looks great, Jules! You should do that more often!" She said to me.
So I did. Tuesday morning it only took me 3 attempts to trace my lids and by Thursday I finally felt competent enough with the pencil to make my blond teenager stereotype proud. But, just as I was becoming more and more used to using eyeliner, people were becoming more and more used to me wearing it. Eventually, nobody said anything of my makeup. I went from a girl who was wearing eyeliner to a girl who wears eyeliner in the course of a week.
I got to thinking about what this meant this morning. Looking down at the pencil in my hands, I twirled it naturally between my fingers and wondered how something smaller than my pinky could change the way my entire personality was perceived, how people and myself saw me. I thought about what it meant to be an eyeliner girl and decided, though it was fun for a few days, that was not really who I am.
So, feeling dramatic, I turned the faucet left and scrubbed viciously at my eyelids. I rinsed and flushed and blotted but, when I finally pulled the towel from my face, a small trace of brown still remained.
It was a smudge, really, nothing substantial. For the most part it looked like I was not wearing makeup at all. But it was there.
Now, 12 hours later, the smudge is still faintly visible. Because, as it seems, makeup does not easily erase. Even a few days if a habit will stick around longer than you expected.
Until that smudge goes away, I will still be a girl who wears eyeliner. I will still look like I'm squinting when I hold eye contact, my eyelids will still feel droopy when I lay my head to rest. I do not know how long that smudge will be there; I hope it's not long. I also do not know if I will ever dabble in makeup again; my guesses are I probably will. But, next time, I hope I invest in makeup remover.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
A weird thought about snow
Snow is beautiful. That is obvious. No matter how cold or how windy or how lonely a night feels, snow makes the ground sparkle and the sky speckle and everything glisten and glean. A white blanket stitched together from millions of tiny flakes of art, its colorlessness makes everything look weightless. It begs to be played with, tossed around, and at the same time admired from afar, careful not to track dirt into its purity. Snow is beautiful. There is no denying that.
But, the more I think about snow, the more I think about what lies underneath. In the morning, when my dad wakes up, he will likely mention how beautiful the park looks after tonight's snowfall. I will probably agree and nod along. But what are we actually saying? The park will be no different. Below a million flakes of white will still sit the same muddy grass-patches and the same unpolished swing-set. The park will look white to us, but it is not. The park will be covered in white. The park will have gotten no more beautiful simply because it snowed tonight because, the park isn't beautiful, the snow is beautiful.
So, I wonder, how am I to judge anything or anyone's sense of beauty or goodness from simply what I know. A person may look good to me, but it is likely that said person is blanketed in socially-demanded habits.
How can I (or anyone) tell where the snow ends and where the park begins? Is it okay to judge something on how much snow it is covered in? After all, when spring comes around, won't the park covered in 10 feet of snow look messier than the one covered in 10 inches?
But, the more I think about snow, the more I think about what lies underneath. In the morning, when my dad wakes up, he will likely mention how beautiful the park looks after tonight's snowfall. I will probably agree and nod along. But what are we actually saying? The park will be no different. Below a million flakes of white will still sit the same muddy grass-patches and the same unpolished swing-set. The park will look white to us, but it is not. The park will be covered in white. The park will have gotten no more beautiful simply because it snowed tonight because, the park isn't beautiful, the snow is beautiful.
So, I wonder, how am I to judge anything or anyone's sense of beauty or goodness from simply what I know. A person may look good to me, but it is likely that said person is blanketed in socially-demanded habits.
How can I (or anyone) tell where the snow ends and where the park begins? Is it okay to judge something on how much snow it is covered in? After all, when spring comes around, won't the park covered in 10 feet of snow look messier than the one covered in 10 inches?