Friday, August 03, 2007

Tears On My Pillow

I woke up crying this morning. This happens occasionally & is directly linked to my vivid imagination. Events happen in my dreams ~ which are very realistic & feel like they are actually happening ~ that set me off. It's not always sad, sometimes I wake up laughing. Or mad at PK for something he did or didn't do in my nocturnal wanderings.

This morning I was back in high school {uh oh. Touchy subject. Mine field. Should we go there? Yes, let's.} My friends & I were in the gym after school practicing our cheer leader routines when some random boys team {my dreams feel real, but are sometimes vague on the details} came in & said it was their practice time & told us to get out. The coach concurred. The coach, John G., got into an argument with me {of course, I'm a big-mouth in la-la land as well} about how we didn't have a teacher supervisor & he didn't care if our group was a go or not.

Why would this make me cry? It's such a seemingly random, silly thing to dream about. However, it's grounded in reality, not realistic-dreams reality, but past-happenings-actual-events reality.

A motley crew of us decided to form a cheer leading squad in grade 11. We practiced diligently, created routines, wrote cheers, bought our own matching outfits {blue shaker-knit sweaters & black stirrups pants ~ it was damn cold out there, thank you very much} & attended games. High school politics being what they are, we weren't the most popular girls. We weren't the prettiest. We weren't the girls that dated the guys from the football team. Those girls were busy doing their own thing. Those girls were on the volleyball team. Those girls would attend football games drinking wobbly-pops in their cars. Those girls were "too cool" to be cheerleaders.

Our teacher supervisor, Velma G. decided to form 2 squads, with the 2nd squad made up of some very enthusiastic, more popular, very bendy junior students. Each squad took turns cheering on the sidelines of home & away games. Now, riding on the smelly bus with a bunch of sweaty teens was not exactly the fulfillment of all our hopes & dreams, but it was part of the gig, so we lived with it.

Wouldn't you know, wouldn't you just guess, can't you see this coming, for 2 games in a row that we were the squad, the team lost. For 2 games in a row the juniors were on the sidelines, the team won. So, the natural, most obvious reason for this would be that our squad was a jinx. Wouldn't you agree? It really was the most logical conclusion. The team requested the junior squad only accompany them to games. The coach agreed with the team. We protested the fairness of the situation. Velma G. got pissed off & disbanded both squads. End of cheer leading.

I know somewhere, buried under an avalanche of crap, is a photo of the squad doing a pyramid sometime before "CheerGate" as I have so cleverly decided to call it. If I ever find it, I'll post it here. You have to see the happiness on our faces. We really believed in what we were doing. We really tried hard to be funny, entertaining, innovative leaders of the cheer. I thought it might be in one of my old yearbooks, but there isn't a word, not a peep, not a photo or even a shadow of a photo to even suggest that such a group ever existed.

This event wasn't the first time the cold, harsh hand of reality slapped me across the face & it certainly wasn't the last, but obviously the sting is still there.

Or there wouldn't have been tears on my pillow this morning.

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