From Fat Kid to Foxy Fourteen, and How I Foiled My Dream

My meteoric rise to beauty didn’t work for me, and I had to learn to love myself again.

Watch me do the splits! Watch me! Watch!

I tried so hard to be a gymnast. No one bothered telling me the girls who succeeded at gym were petite girls with tiny bodies and no boobs. I was okay on this latter score, but at 5'7", I was not Nadia Comaneci.

I could do the splits, though. And my cartwheels were great, so I did the splits and cartwheels all the time. They’d get me somewhere, right?

Mom! Dad! Watch! watch watch watch!

I would do elaborate triple cartwheels and end in splits, my arms in the air like I saw the Olympics gymnasts do. A wide smile and my head thrown back, I awaited applause. My parents were patient, and dutifully applauded. Dad threw back a swig of his Blitz and pet the family dog. Mom did outside chores after a quick, “Good job, Deb.”

Cheerleading was within reach. I wanted to be one of the cute smiling girls jumping up and down, wearing matching skirt and top outfits. I wanted yellow ribbons in my hair, and a blue and gold jacket on top.

It became my ultimate dream to be a cheerleader, and I practiced the cheers of tryout practice. V I C T O R Y! Tryouts were in two weeks.

Each letter had its basic little move, with a Herkie jump at the end. I was a 9th grade girl, and I set my eye on the prize.

Too bad I didn’t have Youtube! It would have made my life so much easier.

On occasion, a dream is unattainable for reasons we can’t fathom. As one of my friends says, we can choose our actions. We can’t choose the consequences.

To a degree, I chose an action that didn’t go well. I spent the night at a friend’s house. Her older brother was a sociopath, perhaps a psychopath.

This isn’t going to end well.

Just writing about it makes me sigh in humiliation.

September 1973 it was.

I lost my virginity in a horrible night staged and perpetrated by my friend’s brother, who later murdered his father. He was a cruel individual.

Thinking about it makes me ill.

My trajectory with cheerleading was affected by the rumors flying around high school. The boys I grew up with were all lit up discussing the night.

The night the murderer-rapist got me so drunk I didn’t know vertical from horizontal.

For God’s sake, I was such a kid. Such a child.

I have a hard time writing about it, and tend to be too graphic or too subtle.

Maybe later I’ll take another run at it, but friends, know that I went from innocent and happy to depressed and miserable. Photos of me, before and after, show happiness to misery. It shows in my eyes. And smile to sorrow.

Yes, I have the photos. No, I will not share them.

Maybe someday.

I tried to move on. I was fourteen trying to be fourteen, trying so hard.

Unfortunately, because I grew up in a very small town, I was no longer the sweet girl with a sprinkle of freckles wearing two braids down either side of my head.

I was no longer wearing white cotton eyelets, helping Mom hang washed laundry on the line, cotton sheets waving in a summer breeze.

Since the night — “the night” — I was bad.

I was spoiled fruit. I was sour milk. I was shunned by my peers because of what happened.

A few friends came to my side, but one girl was my best friend for three months and then shared my secrets out. Duplicitous.

Later, I became the girl who chose adventure. If I was going to be a bad girl, might as well seize the moment. It was my time to “the opposite of shine.”

But before my descent into “I don’t give an F,” I made a serious attempt at redemption. Cheerleading would be my ladder back to normal girlhood. Cheerleaders were pretty, good girls. I would attain my status back!

I was like a long, slender dragonfly with beautiful blue wings, flitting here and there. I had silky short dresses, with matching undershorts that were called “Sizzlers,” and why the hell my mother allowed me to wear these is beyond me.

Let me call Mom and ask her.

“Mom, why would you let me wear those stupid dresses with matching puffy little underwear? Those were the sluttiest and most grotesque clothing item on the market.”

“You begged me for them. I thought they were cute.”

This part I made up. My mom’s been gone for several years.

Honestly, I did beg Mom for them, but I also begged her for purple paisley dresses like the ones Mama Cass wore, before she choked on the sandwich or whatever happened. She got them for me too. I loved Mom.

When I was eleven, I looked like a little Mama Cass, a short little dork with greasy hair parted in the middle.

When I was thirteen nearly fourteen, I looked like Lolita and had no idea how to maneuver that. It’s hard to be suddenly stunning. I made poor choices, and the consequences were life-changing

Cheerleading tryouts night came. I put on my green and white “sizzler” dress with matching under short shorts. They looked like bikini bottoms — very, very skimpy.

The little dress was the closest thing to a cheerleading outfit I could come up with.

The dance part went well. Then, I did the group cheer. Whee! I was succeeding, doing cute little jumps and smiling and getting some smiles from a huge audience of high school kids there to watch. After all, we would cheer in front of an audience. The gymnasium was packed.

The last part of tryouts was an ‘on the spot’ cheer we were given ten minutes to make up. I was scared. I practiced in a little hallway, but didn’t know what to do. I needed to make up moves to the spelled out letters FIGHT! I figured out a game plan.

I got the moves down, very basic, but decided to bust out a cartwheel and splits for the final part!

I’d be a shoo in! A star! All those practice splits and cartwheels at home would propel me to the team.

The emcee called my name, and I ran out, punctuating my running with jumps and cheers and smiles. The audience screamed the letters, and I did my moves.

Then, the end! I launched into my cartwheel.

Oh, my God. Trouble.

I felt my silky dress drop all the way to my waist. I was upside down at this point, and the law of gravity will have its way.

Damn gravity!

My teenage body felt so naked, and all the audience could focus on, no doubt, was that girl body in a bikini bottom.

I righted myself before the dress flashed my girl boobs in their bra, but I knew I had sunk my own ship. I was not a cheerleader.

I was the hussy everyone talked about. I smiled and ran to the bleachers, my face so hot and red you could have fried an egg on it.

Devastated. Absolutely crushed.

I was one of three girls who didn’t make the team.

In the bathroom at school a few days later, I was in one of the stalls. I heard the cheer advisor come in with her friend. They didn’t know I was in there.

The teachers talked.

“It’s not like she was bad. She is actually pretty talented. It’s just that when her dress slid off, we just couldn’t take her.”

The other teacher laughed, “She got some pretty good applause!”

The advisor said, “We don’t need that kind of support. She can try out next year.”

I stayed in the stall and that’s when I cried. I cried until all my Maybelline mascara ran in black rivers down my cheeks. And then, I cleaned my face and put my make up back on.

That was a year I won’t forget, a time that haunts me even now.

Here’s what I’ve learned, though.

Parts of this story were not my fault. And to tell my story, my truth, teaches me that I’ve healed.

It’s been forty-nine years. I’m still the girl in the sizzler dress. Now, I’m owning it.

Watch me! Watch me do the splits.

Thanks for reading my story!

Here’s another one for you.