Last night was one of those nights where you wake up more than a few times during the night, and finally rise out of bed at 6:30 a.m., giving up on any notion of going back to sleep. My last dream I had found me back in high school. I was playing right field during baseball practice (it was baseball, not softball...and it was a coed team, weird). All of the balls seemed to fly in my direction in one way or another, and try as I may (even diving, outstretched, onto the ground), I couldn’t catch a single one. That’s really nothing new, that is a culmination, really, of my high school sports experience. Well, the coach had one of the star players show me how to gauge where a ball was headed, get there and plant myself, and go through step by step, if you will, of how to catch the ball. I found myself frustrated, and I gave up and went and did something else. That’s when I woke up.
When I woke up, I started to think about my high school sports experience. I thought about those who were really good, and then I thought about me. I remember writing about that experience for my first creative writing essay in college. I wrote about the basketball team, and how I felt cheated out of my experience, and how one game the coach actually put me in at the beginning of the game, took me out after I got the butterflies out, and then actually put me back in the game...that had never happened before (I would usually go in the last couple of minutes of the fourth quarter if we were losing or winning by a substantial amount). I scored 10 points that game, and was the game changer at a pivotal moment. It was awesome. I remember writing about how disappointed I was when I didn’t receive any playing time the next two games, and blah, blah, blah. Well, my paper came back to me, after being reviewed by a jury of editors, with red marks all over the place. The comments on the back page suggested that the paper sounded like the whining of a selfish brat. I was a bit shocked, and offended. I thought about those statements a great deal afterward, trying, albeit pridefully, to find some understanding in the criticism. As I thought back this morning, I recognized the truth in the criticism. They were right. I came to that conclusion after realizing something very important about myself...whether from the dream, or some other state of consciousness that we often find ourselves at in moments of clarity. I have never actively trained for anything. I have never worked, step by step, physically, mentally, or emotionally, on anything. I have always come along for the ride, hoping to learn something along the way, whether by copying others, or just simply observing and floating along. I have done this with sports, physical fitness, fashion, teaching, directing, overall health and wellness, homework, politics, college, jobs that I have had, hobbies, etc. I have never worked on one thing, or broken it down and trained enough, to know any real skills. Even with acting this has proven true. I have never systematically broken it down to fundamentals, or worked on something specific like voice, or body movements, over and over again. With acting, you can get away with that to a certain extent. I think that’s why I have been able to be at least moderately successful on stage.
I was not involved in sports early on. I was in gymnastics for a few years off and on, as a child. I can remember doing enough to get by in that field, as well. I was afraid of the equipment, so I don’t think, looking back, that I would ever do anything that could really get me injured. I have never broken a bone in my life, or had to stay in the hospital, or ever needed surgery. Is it possible that someone as adventurous as everyone thinks me to be might actually have led a very careful life, and does so even now? You know, I wish there would have been somebody to push me along the way. I wish someone would have told me to suck it up, and not only stick with my commitments, but do the very best I could, training from the ground up, until I got it right. I wish someone would have thrown me in the pool to teach me how to swim, so to speak. I wish someone would have thrown a dodge ball at me early on, so I could see it wasn’t so bad, and not be so damn afraid of them throughout my teens, even though I was really good at pretending to be brave. I could keep going, but then it would begin to sound like the whining of a selfish brat. :) I didn’t have those things. I didn’t have the support I wanted. I’m trying to look back and think of why I didn’t take those things on myself. Why did I keep waiting for someone to come along and do it for me? Why am I still waiting?
My biggest secret is probably that I feel like a fraud all of the time. I am so afraid of people along the way, not only figuring that out, but pointing it out to everyone else. I think I feel this way, perhaps, because I have not taken the time to truly learn something from start to finish. I did not play sports as a young child, so I joined the teams late (in my teens), with virtually no talent or skills for the sport. I am glad that I found cheerleading first when I moved to Cass City. My initial observations when I moved to that town (I am very observant, which has unfortunately enabled this behavior) found that, in order to survive in that town, you had to join...something, or you risk the possibility of becoming invisible. I had enthusiasm, and I have been blessed with some semblance of natural rhythm. Luckily, those two things won me a spot onto the cheerleading squad. I only cheered for one year, because it became unpopular. Heaven forbid I did something...unpopular. So, I joined the basketball team, and the volleyball team, and the softball team, and gymnastics. I even ran track for a couple of years, and did the high jump. Hahahaha. Anyone who knows my family, knows that it is a running joke how I can’t jump...at all. Oh, the irony. I also joined the plays, and even did forensics. I also ran for student council, and was voted Senior Class President. I did most of those things during college, as well. I showed up to every practice or meeting and ‘worked hard’. I think I saw expending energy, or spending time, as working hard. I think I still hold onto that notion. I’m not sure, looking back now, that I was really working on anything at all. I’m not sure I am now. People often throw around the joke ‘are you working hard or hardly working?‘ I think I have spent a majority of my life working hard at hardly working. Why not work the fundamentals after practice until I felt comfortable enough to actually be a little bit confident? I have never had a lot of confidence, but I see now it might be because I have never taken the time to do or learn anything to be confident about.
It’s not going to be easy to change this. In fact, I will have to work against my own instincts, and fight the natural tendency to skip around, only skimming the surface of a new activity, hypothesis, or process. I no longer desire to be a Jack of All Trades (Master of None), or continue to pretend to be one. I’m going more for the Polymath, or the Renaissance Man, if you will. Now I just have to choose what specific activity, hypothesis, and/or process in which to focus my time and energy......hahahaha....*sigh*.
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