Hip Hip You're Gay

So when Carrie Fisher died I thought there would be no more funny things ever to think or write again and then I went to Emma’s cheer practice.

This isn’t even about being gay, it’s just a good title. Except that all cheer teams should be fun and strong gay dudes with only the tiny girls they fling up into the air being the tiny girls. I know this now after watching my fairly athletic, strong and gymnastic daughter crushed, stepped on, facially mangled and broken in half by the girl she was flinging into the air.

Emma is a kid who if you give her a task, like let’s say an urgent top secret document that is on fire and it needs to get to Cairo across the desert by sundown, without the flame going out, this girl will get the document there, burned up and down her arms, feet shredded, personal needs waived. She is like the Teminator, she will not stop.

That is why when, in the last few days of practice with her team, I heard tiny cracks in her armor coming out as little odd peeps, like maybe a sigh, and then “since I can't quit, maybe I can switch schools” and the more obvious “I hope I get injured so I don’t have to go.” Then her dread started pouring out. There is a competition coming, like the Olympics of competition, and they have only been practicing a month. Maybe twenty five hours total if you don’t count the hours in between worrying.

I finally went to her practice just to see what was going on which involved me having to get out of my pajamas ON VACATION, and driving up all the way to the school, in the almost practically raining but not quite weather, all alone, like the sad lonely loner mom that I am.

This is where I saw a few things. 1. My non-complaining, straight A super student athelete rushing trying to hit her routines, trying to fling this girl into the air. B. Watching her back crumple, watching them MIME the stunts since they can’t physically DO them, three days from competition. It was the look on her face that maybe you only know if you are me watching a person who grew out of your body. Her face frozen, her eyes were stricken, the girl crashing down into her body had snapped her spirit in half. It was the same as the infamous basketball practice we had her do years ago with super coach Bruce, shooting three point shots. She had already practiced for a rough few hours and then the coach, who was terrific but tough, had made them shoot threes from different parts of the court. She got stuck on one spot and could not sink a basket. She kept throwing and throwing and trying and trying and that night I got to see the end of Emma, she had an end. Her spirit broke after about a million shots, wet with sweat, her heart just crushed. Her love for basketball, which wasn’t all that big to begin with, snuffed out at the rim.

I saw the look today. 30 other team members around her, dashing to their different positions, trying to make the team work, all of them with various versions of Emma’s look on their faces, all of them with that crushed look. Defeat. Not just defeet in her face either, every time her flyer missed and came crashing down. Defeat that comes from equation: impossible goals + bad coaching = team injury. Or worse. Crying daughter in my car. Bruised arms. Body aching and sport she hates. And now her body is so sore from shooting the idiot up into the sky that she has no strength left to do the thing she came to cheer to do- her gymnastic tumble run. Her arms just crumble under her. Her heart all up in her throat, like she swallowed a fat hot washcloth. I want to ram the salad that the coach is eating while ordering her team around and not ever getting up, into her throat.

There is another mom there, her daughter a beefier girl with one eye that you can’t quite figure out where it is. The girl stands opposite of Emma and helps shove their bird girl into the air. The mom is like a sea lion who swallowed a phone booth. Her head alone is like Easter Island. She has a lot to say, and pretty loudly. I like that she hates this team as much as I do, I just hope she never falls on me.

Luckily with the bruises and the crying and the broken back and the lack of fun, it looks like Emma is going to go happily back to gymnastics once she can walk again. I told her that since this competition coming up is impossible to get out of (people are actually standing ON her), and only a few days away so no chance of actually being ready or good, she has to just approach it as humorously as possible. This is the one time you can go compete and it doesn’t matter how you do, because it will be terrible. Funny, funny and terrible. And not your fault.