As some of you know, thanks to some chance meetings I recently got back into gymnastics after stopping for a little under 5 years.
But why, you ask, did I stop for 5 years? Well, it’s not true that I “stopped”, exactly. I kept up practicing what I knew at home, though I didn’t really advance much because I don’t have much safety gear at home to let me really push myself, and breaking my neck has never been my idea of a good time - but, there is a reason I dropped out of taking lessons.
You see, there were...complications.
The complications began before I even started. You see, dear reader - as some of you know, I have two dads, which is awesome, and I love them, but there are a few people who get weird about it. You know. The bad kind of weird. With gymnastics being a sport that more girls are into than boys in the first place, there were already some Questions being asked. Stupid questions, really - what kid DOESN’T want to learn how to do the closest thing to flying that humans can do? Why is that “more of a girl thing” in the first place?
I started classes when I was 9, and that led to complication #2: like most of the other boys, I started showing up to practice in shorts and T-shirts, and all was good - for a few weeks. Unfortunately, as is common in parenting, my dads tended to buy clothes slightly too big for me and let me grow into them, and one fateful day, it backfired-
I caught my foot in the leg of my shorts in midair. To this day I’m not entirely sure what happened between that moment, and when I regained my senses crying on the floor, with a sprained knee and adults around me fearing I’d broken my arm. All I know is, to add insult to injury, my shorts were laying on the floor about 20 paces away.
Of course, I was a kid. Kids are rubber. I bounced back from it just fine - but, when I went back, my dads insisted on switching my practice outfit to a biketard more like the girls wore. Well, I say they insisted but really it was more that they asked if I wanted to try that, I remembered laying there crying in my underwear while everyone stared and said “YES PLEASE ANYTHING TO NOT DO THAT AGAIN”
Everything was fine after that...until I was 12. You probably remember what being 12 is like - first encounters with skin problems, feet growing a full size overnight, hitting your head on everything because it doesn’t seem possible that you’re getting this tall this fast...
And other...anatomical issues.
Yes - you see, my new, safer practice outfit brought with it some problems of its own. All was well and good, until I hit that lovely phase of life where my junk discovered the joys of doing a Jack-in-the-box impression and decided to show off its new trick every chance it got. My dance belt helped, but not enough to contain The Wrath of the Junior Boner. I tried wearing shorts again, but anything tight enough to avoid a repeat of The Great Incident was also tight enough to reveal more than anyone wanted to see.
And that is when I decided to try taking matters into my own hands - by taping it down. And no, dear reader, I don’t mean I medical taped over my underwear - I mean I put tape directly on some of the most sensitive skin on my body, ran it up my buttocks, around my legs, until I had an entire extra set of underwear on made out of nothing but heavy-duty, stiff, waterproof medical tape.
So, dear reader, I ask: have you ever tried to do the splits while wearing a pair of underwear made entirely out of tape? Specifically, a type of tape that does not stretch? If not, I would like you to imagine if you will, someone shoving coarse sandpaper down your underwear and giving you an atomic wedgie, and you have a pretty similar picture.
And I, too embarrassed to admit the Very Personal Problem I Was Having, decided to push through it and finish the whole lesson. I still remember my reflection at the end of it, I looked like I was dying.
And it quickly dawned on me, as it may also have already dawned on you - the story was not over there. I still had to free myself from the tape prison.
So, my dads took me home, and I sprinted to the bathroom.
From here, I invite you to try and imagine this from my dads’ point of view. You know very well that your son is...going through a difficult time in every person’s life. You want to support him the best you can, but you also want to respect his privacy. He has been acting Odd all day, showing obvious signs of physical discomfort. Now, after athletic practice, he’s been locked in the bathroom for about 15 minutes-
My dads, like many would, immediately got the emergency key and barged in-
And found me there, sitting on the toilet, scissors in my shaking hand, scraps of tape all over the entire room, on my arms, on my face, in my hair - impossible to tell where it all came from because the chastity belt of tape seemed almost entirely intact around my bruised hips and thighs.
Imagine the grace and compassion and self-control it would take not to fall on the floor laughing as you suddenly realize the reason for the discomfort your stupid, stupid son had been showing all day, and you will discover why I love my family.
That, my friends, was the day I decided to stop for a few years. I never did want to see it as quitting, just...a little hiatus until I stopped growing an inch a night and (*ahem*) standing at attention over no more than a stiff breeze. Both the pain and the fear of what people would say if they ever found out were bad enough on their own - when they combined...it was the easiest hiatus I’ve ever decided to take.
tl;dr: tight clothes and puberty did not mix; went on hiatus because my 12-year old penis brought dishonor on my family.
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