1) Soccer (Terrible). I was a goalie and I was eight years old & once someone kicked the ball into my head during practice and still managed to score the goal.
2) Basketball (Not very good). Freshman year in high school, I made the JV team simply because I was tall, and could rebound (picture Wilt Chamberlain as a 14-year-old girl wearing umbros).
3) Softball (Also not very good). I was also on the JV softball team my freshman year in high school, but God knows why. My best friend Beth and I were constantly benched, except most times there wasn't even a bench, so we just sat in dirt on the side of the field, naming the batter's helmets with a roll of masking tape and a Sharpie.
4) Baseball (Fair). For a ten year old playing on an all-boys' Little League team, I was especially resilient when my teammates called me names. I also remember hitting a couple of solid doubles.
5) Volleyball (Pretty good). Freshman and Sophomore year of high school I played on the JV team. I had a hell of a serve, until I dislocated my shoulder during practice. Subsequently, I started doing theater, but that is another blog post.
6) Field Hockey (Very good). Freshman and sophomore year, I played on the JV team, and was even captain of the team during sophomore year. I also played on the Varsity team my junior year in high school. I was a brute of a halfback. You wouldn't have recognized me. I could steal the ball away from any of those little plaid skirted ladies. I could also run really, really fast. (#23 in the pic).
During my junior year of high school, when I was at the top of my field hockey game, I could run a mile in just about eight minutes. I heard that was pretty good. Yep, I've been hanging onto that compliment for just over twenty years now.
But for all the sports I used to play, and all that running I used to do, I've never kept up with it.
Wait. I did try running once during a summer break after my first year at college. I remember I even made a mix tape with Toto's "Africa" on it for inspiration. I wound up getting heat stroke and never running again. I don't blame it on Toto.
The type of running I do now, however, is what I like to call Emo-Brain-K marathons (emotional marathons run in my brain). They mostly involve running around in my head, obsessively perseverating on thoughts and ideas until I'm completely exhausted. Very few people cheer for me and even fewer offer cups of water. I'm not blaming you.
If you suffer from anxiety or depression, you know what I'm talking about. If not (and/or if you are a real runner of marathons) I am super jealous.
The holidays can be especially challenging for those of us who run Emo-Brain-Ks. We replay events from our past, not too unlike the plot of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but often without spiritual tour guides to help us draw concrete conclusions. Also, if we're feeling ornery, it's not because we are intrinsically Scrooge-like, it's because (like Scrooge), something in our past has stuck with us and the psychic pain is hard to shake off.
Hopefully, our Ghosts of Christmases Yet to Come will soon show us much brighter pictures of ourselves, surrounded only by those cheering us on, handing us cups of water -- learning not to run so many Emo-Brain-Ks alone.
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