"What if my life gets ruined?": The Art of Decoding Cheer Speak
I was miles away from home and thinking about something random.
I needed to go to Wegmans to get more cheese (who thinks about cheese at 6:15 in the morning?!?).
Anyway, that’s when I realized that I’d forgotten it. Being such a careful planner, I’d left home confident and happy that I had everything I needed. Too confident, apparently, because I’d forgotten the teasing comb.
My daughter and I woke up early and started our day before the crack of dawn.
Uniform: check. Makeup: check. Bobby pins: check. Millions of other cheer related things: check.
As I drove, I knew that it sat on the table in the bedroom- next to last year’s glitter (why haven’t I thrown that away yet?) and the (judgement-free) emergency pixie sticks.
It was laughing at me me.
Damned teasing comb. There was no time to go back for it and the stores weren’t open yet. Sometimes when I’m struggling to be rational I imagine an angel and devil on my shoulders (probably because I watched too much TV in the ‘80’s- but that’s another story).
The devil, I call him Bob, was telling me to turn around and get the comb. “No one will mind if you’re late”, he told me, “Besides, your daughter will be so upset if you don’t- and do you really want to upset her on competition day. Do you??? A good mom would go back for it.” Then he snickered.
Gladys, the angel, tried desperately to reason with me. “The one thing that would freak your daughter out more than having a flat ponytail is the thought of being late. Are you really going to backtrack for MILES when the rest of her hair is perfect? Take a breath,” Gladys demanded, “and focus on the moment. Everything else will work itself out.”
Thanks Gladys, you’re the best.
So my cheerleader was stuck. The only one of 19 to have a flat (completely unteased) ponytail. She worried, as she usually does, when she isn’t 100% prepared. Each doomsday scenario she presented was met with my assurance that things would be fine.
“What if the coaches yell at me? “What if people laugh at my hair?” “What if I’m not allowed to compete?” “What if my life gets ruined?!?”
“It will ALL be okay.” I tried my best to soothe her, knowing that it wasn’t really about the flat ponytail but about the stunt that her group has, for weeks, tirelessly struggled to perfect.
“Your flat ponytail won’t give you bad luck” I said- trying to find words that she could connect with, “and limp hair isn’t a sign that your stunt will fall.”
As I mentioned my forgotten comb to a fellow cheer mom, another overheard and offered her own daughter’s teasing comb. Then came that awkward moment when I had to say “Thank you, but no thank you.”
Because, lice.
Knowing the comfort that my daughter would feel when her hair was teased and she looked just like her teammates, Bob whispered, “What’s the big deal? Just use the comb. Everything will be fine. You worry too much. What are the chances that this wonderful child actually has lice?” And then Bob rolled his eyes at me. He’s such an ass sometimes.
Gladys said nothing but gave me ‘The Mom Look’ that said: ‘Are you freaking crazy?!? Must I remind you of the first grade lice incident? Do you remember how many HOURS you spent combing and cutting your daughter’s long curly hair? Do you remember the bags of stuffed animals and pillows and cushions? Have you forgotten how absolutely INSANE you became for two weeks straight -washing and drying and boiling and freezing and microwaving just about everything in your house? And don’t get me started on the itching. That was seriously the worst.’
In a flash, it all came back to me.
‘You’re right, Gladys’, I said (but only to myself because I didn’t need everyone to know that I had an insane internal dialogue happening).
Comb or no comb, the stunt hit, her team won first place and I can (kind of) suppress the image of lice eggs hatching in her hair.
At bedtime my cheerleader admitted, “I was worried about my hair today, but really I just wanted our stunt to hit. I was tired of us failing at that all the time.”
I reminded her that it was good to want to be completely prepared but we all can work on adapting when things veer off center (because things always will). A good lesson for the both of us.
No matter what Bob says.