Proof of the power of Prayer and getting better as you age...

(Dear flist - this may be long and boring, but it is really important to me and I hope some of you actually read it all the way to the end...it should, at least, have amusing parts...)

I may have mentioned casually somewhere along the line that I am not particularly athletic.  I should clarify.  I am not particularly athletic the way Neville Longbottom was not particularly adept at Snape's potions classes.

While I never managed to actually melt a pair of sneakers just by standing around in them, I did manage to get lost in the water in the  pool and had to be retrieved from where I got lost to.  I managed to fail the President's fitness test in Junior High School.  (You did  not know it was possible to FAIL that?  Evidently it was...) They put me in remedial gym with about 5 other kids, all of whom had some legitimate disability of some sort.  (They had to take me out of remedial gym because it conflicted with advanced French, so I wasn't there long.)

Once I got to High School I could PICK, within reason, what I wanted for gym.  So I took weight lifting, and recreational games, (crab soccer, anyone?) and dance, and orienteering, and one semester when no better choice presented itself, golf.  This did not get me off scott free from basketball, softball and, the worst, taught by a teacher who insisted we follow the very latest international women's volleyball association rules, Volleyball.  And I hated, with a burning, driving passion which I cannot begin to describe, any competitive game.  I never understood the rules.  No one ever taught me any of the skills.  People would yell at me what to do with the ball and I never understood what they meant.If the ball came anywhere near me, it hit me in the face.  I sucked at every last bit of it, it was humiliating, I wanted to die, and that was pretty much that.  Throw in that I hate getting my face sweaty and changing clothes in front of strangers and you've got the whole gorgeous enchilada of my-life-in-gym. 

Thus, when the note came home in the bookbag for Mommy basketball at the kid's school, I knew it was the perfect opportunity.  It would be hard.  It would be miserable.  I would hate it.  And if I did it, I could then forevermore point to this and say "House Elf, remember when Mommy did the basketball, and it was hard, and she stunk at it, but she kept on trying because it was a good thing to do and eventually she stunk a little less at it?" at points where he needed to work hard at something he didn't enjoy.  That, and I thought it might be some sort of bonding experience for him to be able to laugh at me.  I signed up.

Ben Franklin said to beware any enterprise that required new clothing.  This bizarre effort of mine started with my having to ASK my knit buddies what people wear to play basketball.  I must have looked achingly pathetic, because one of them decided immediately that she needed to upgrade her yoga pants wardrobe and could I possibly use a pair she was "getting rid of anyway."  She even delivered them to my door late Tuesday night.

Wednesday it occurred to me that the last time I bought sports shoes of any description was back in the 90's.  Not that I have exactly worn them out, but I had no idea where they might be, and I didn't even have a pair of skippies to my name.  Nor did I have a nice big T-shirt to wear over all this.  So we went to the Dollar store and 35 dollars later we came out with t-shirts, underpants for my kid, a set of long johns that should work for pj's for me, leggings, a nice pair of athletic socks with the American Flag on them, two lipsticks and a crystal bracelet featuring red aurora borealis globes, so I could channel my inner Gryffindor.  I mean, despite the cauldrons, Neville does eventually get the snake, so maybe...

I went to Payless Shoes for something to put on my feet.  Athletic shoes are ugly.  They are unremittingly ugly at normal female sizes, and I have the feet of a drag queen.  However, there was one pair with bright blue soles, which looked somehow like large little kid sneakers, so I got them. For the egregious sum of 35 dollars.  And because it was BoGo, I got a second pair of shoes, five inch high Come-F#ck-Me pumps, in a color to match the two dresses I got back in October, just to remind myself that I am still me, even if I do have new athletic shoes.  ( I wasn't always old and fat and ugly and the legs are holding up better than the rest of me...)

Begging God and all the saints to help me, I walked into the gym still chewing on my dinner, because of course there was not time to eat it at home, and had the first failure - seltzer I bought refusing to open without spraying all over.

And that was the last true failure of the night.

I mean, no, I could not do a single sit-up.  And yes, I did fall over at one point when I missed a ball that was passed to me.  And true, the only people in the room who might have been worse than me were people with foreign accents who had probably never touched a basketball before in their lives.  But I really was not that bad.  I was a lot better than I was the last time I tried doing any of this in HS.  I dribbled the ball.  She who had amused 20 years of HS students by saying "I am not telling you I know everything.  I can't even dribble a basketball.  But I am better at what I teach than you are..." and fielding incredulity every single time dribbled the ball down to the end of the gym and back.  Did it slow, did it faster, did it with her non-dominant hand, did it from one hand to the other. 

I DRIBBLED THE FECKING BALL! 

And when we got to practice how to shoot baskets after a brief explanation ( I do not recall anyone in gym ever telling me HOW to shoot one - just Go Do It.  Sylvia B, and the rest of you, you probably TRIED, but I could not possibly hear...)  I got three baskets!!!!

And two were nothing but net!!!!

And One was on my first try!

Now this was not on the regulation hoop.  It was maybe  a foot lower.  But it was not a LOW hoop, not down near my head or anything.  AND I GOT THE BALL THROUGH THE HOOP!

Can y'all say "And Hermione Granger has Scored with the Quaffle!" in Lee Jordan's voice???

No one laughed at me.  No one laughed at anyone.  We all just had a good time.  And when I had to try to get a point for my team at the very end of class and the best I could do was four attempts that hit the rim or the backboard (At regulation height this time) I still got a high five and I was not the least bit humiliated.

My six year old was wildly disappointed that he won't be able to teach me to dribble, but I pointed out that I still don' know how to do it while someone is trying to take the ball away from me, and he was ok with that.  And the silly shoes, on the way home, well, I can't tell for sure, but they might be glow in the dark... how fun is that?

Maybe there is something to be said for desperate prayer and for getting better at things as you get older after all...