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Sometimes I sit here and wonder if I'm going too far or being too on the nose with the whole "Spy had a bad childhood" thing, and then I allow my parents to perceive me and it's like... nvm.

Something about writing it really forces a bitch to acknowledge her upbringing was abnormal. It's all ooh, angsty, until you remember your own PTSD.

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in hindsight, the american public school idea of gym class was both absolutely buckwild and also incredibly ableist. i have a degree in education, and the more time i spend away from being a student, the less the concepts espoused there make any sense to me.

i was dancing ballet somewhere between 3-5 days a week, but i have never been a good runner. i have asthma and, at the time, i had horrible shin splints. yet running was seen as the only indicator of my health. my teacher fucking hated me for my lack of sprinter's interest here, like i was doing it to spite him. he thought that asthma was something "only for kids", like i was faking a wracking cough just so i could be "lazy" and "get away with it".

we weren't trained how to run safely. we often ran with bad form in sneakers that didn't quite fit. we were required to be able to ace this test once a year, immediately, with no follow-up or practicing. the rest of the year, gym class was a waste of time and energy. even kids who liked gym liked it because it was useless in entirety.

maybe he hated me because i was one of those students who shouldn't have struggled. i was pretty fit. during the sit-up test, i outpaced the other kids. corework is incredibly important to dancers, so i found the sit-up test easy. my teacher didn't take down my first result. he said, i've seen how you run, no way your number is that high. i explained i dance, he snorted and said you hardly have the body of an athlete and made me do the test again to be sure i wasn't "cheating". when i still passed, he said so you don't bother running just because you're a little rebel, huh? i bet you just like making men angry.

we had these sweat-covered wooden boxes to test our hamstring flexibility. you'd sit down, put your feet against a board, and push a slider away from your body. we had 3 turns to pass the test. on the first turn, my teacher watched as i gently pushed the slider to the end of the row instead of shoving myself forcefully over my toes. he said don't be rude, take the test seriously. i said - "okay, but i clearly can pass the test, i don't want to force my muscles. sudden movements aren't good form." he said i was going to get a detention at this rate. that he knew it was going to be a fight with you, it always is. you like the attention because you don't get it at home, huh?

i was 14, and i was annoyed and embarrassed, and i didn't handle it well. so i did as requested. i made my hands into a little diamond and shoved, just the way he wanted. the slider snapped off due to the amount of sudden force. i hit the end of the row so hard the test just fucking broke. i was sitting there, shocked by what was a legitimate accident: and this dude goes white and then red in the face. this is one of the only times in my life i got sent to the principal. he said she is vindictive and broke school property. malicious. noncompliant. for gym that year, i skirted by with an ugly "barely passing" D+.

and i was lucky. for once in my life, my parents were extremely chill about the whole thing. they saw the grade and just laughed about it. they were paying for me to go to dance class 4 hours a day, they knew exactly how fit i was. the principal tried to explain it to them, annoyed with their dismissal: i clearly wasn't healthy. he made sure they knew i wasn't an athlete, because dance is not a sport. i had to run the mile three times that year, to "make up" for my lack of effort. i walked it slow on purpose.

and i just... don't get it. in no other class would the lack of accommodations or training be appropriate. yes, you should know certain things leaving a class, but nobody expects you to be able to recite the whole biology textbook by the third month. nobody particularly expects you to pass a test if the teacher has literally never taught it. imagine if in english, you had a random test on vocabulary, and when you said these are just random words you never taught us. it isn't a good indicator of my reading level, writing, or of my reading comprehension - you were told: well it's most of your grade, but it's not that fucking hard, is it?

it is not a class about how to cook or how to help yourself balance your diet or how to run or how to get good at stretching or how to stay agile or how to do cool gymnastics or how to listen to your body or how to watch for injury or how to treat chronic pain or how to safely use weights. it was an hour of my life where i would be bullied with the teacher's permission. i look back at this thing and i just... i don't get it. while art teachers and english teachers are struggling for any funding - gym is just. protected under the idea it is somehow helping america... stay "fit". they make us run a mile and then say "great, we've measured your health" ... and then that's just... it.

as i was teaching the other day, i mentioned the fitnessgram pacer test to my kids. they're 19, are in college. many of them haven't been in gym class for a few years. i wish you could have been there to see their reaction. it was like i reminded them of their worst nightmare. we had to derail the conversation just so each person could go around the room and say their horror story about it. and each person had a horror story.

these days, i'm doing well. i love how strong i am, when i can be strong and my heart don't act up. i still dance at least 3 times a week. i have a performance on saturday, actually. but before you ask - no, i never learned to run. i don't really want to either, because it's just not good for my particular body.

so i guess, according to them - that makes me unhealthy.

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Btw when someone says "don't talk to me like that, I don't know you" the normal thing to do is apologize for the perceived overfamiliarity and correct the behavior. Just in case anyone was wondering

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Blog Posts Masterlist

Here are all the blogs I've written sorted according to six categories.

Getting Published/Querying:

How To Get Published As A Minor—A Step-By-Step Guide

How To Get Out Of The Slush Pile And Make Your Agent Say Yes

How To Answer Some Common Literary Agent Questions

Editing:

Ten Dos And Don'ts Of Worldbuilding

How To Name Your Characters

How To Hook Your Readers With Your Chapter's Starting And Ending

How To Write And Create A Sub Plot

How To Immerse Your Readers With Indirect Characterisation

Genre-Based Advice:

How To Build A Realistic Magic System

How To Get Away With Murder...As An Author

How To Get Away With Murder Part Two: Writing Murder Mysteries

How To Build Tension And Make Your Readers Feel Scared

Character-Based Advice:

How To Write POC Characters Without Seeming Racist

How To Write An Antagonist

How To Create Realistic Book Characters

How To Write Mythical Creatures Without Sounding Redundant

How To Write A Compelling Character Arc

How To Create A Morally Grey Character

How To Write A Disabled Character: Ten Dos And Don'ts

How To Write A Plot Device Character

How To Develop A Memorable Antagonist

How To Write And Research Mental Illnesses

Scene-Based Advice:

How To Build Tension And Make Your Readers Feel Scared

Four Tips On How To Make Your Plot Twist Work

How To Set The Scene Without Info Dumping

How To Accurately Describe Pain In Writing

How To Create A Well-Written Fight Scene

Writing A Creepy Setting: Tips And Examples

The Ultimate Guide To Writing Persuasive Arguments

Forgining Epic Battles: Techniques For Writing Gripping War Scenes

The Writer's Guide to Authentic Wounds and Fatalities

Recommendations:

Websites And Writing Apps Every Author Needs in 2023

Seven Blogs You Need To Read As An Author