DAY 12. THE CONFLICTS IN YOUR LIFE

Think about how you got to where you are today and the struggles you overcame.

List some of the struggles.

Then choose one or two struggles to write about where

you describe the situation and explain the circumstances.

Obstacles/Struggles List

Examples

• Being the youngest and only girl in the family

• Playing sports when it was not common for girls to do

• Trying to be perfect academically

• Competing in girls’ sports and getting little recognition outside my family and friends

• Feeling like a freak for being an athlete

• Being shy

• Being afraid to promote me

• Having a cousin who made me feel inferior

• Seeing myself as not pretty like other girls

• Desperately wanting friends but having difficulty because of my shyness

• Afraid of failing so sometimes not going for it

• Feeling I was less than everyone else (not as good as)

• Feeling my parents were not as cool as other parents

• Feeling I lived in a bad neighborhood and having friends over was not a good idea

• Wanting to be a teacher but being anxious about talking to large groups

• Wanting to work in video production but being afraid it lacked job security

• Wanting to be a published writer but being afraid I couldn’t survive financially

• Being betrayed by a friend I cared deeply about

• Being made to feel invisible by a friend who refused to speak with me

• Working for a principal who was harmful to the school and trying to stop him

• Wanting to be married but unable to meet and find the right guy

 

           

I struggled with feeling like a freak for being a girl who liked to play sports. In the late sixties and early seventies, organized athletic teams for girls whether school, college, or rec were few. Our female role models were characters in movies whose sole goal was to marry a handsome rich man who would take care of us. I admit that Doris Day movies were a mainstay for me, along with TV shows like Make Room For Daddy, Father Knows Best, and Ozzie and Harriet. In all of them, a woman’s place was in the home. If she was out in the work world, like Doris Day’s characters, it was temporary until she found her man. In order to achieve that prize, the woman had to be feminine. Athletic women were stereotyped and served as caricatures or foils to the beautiful heroine.

           

Needless to say, my life was a contradiction. I absorbed the lessons of these films and TV shows while my life in the real world revolved around sports--watching my father and brothers play then playing myself. While lots of female athletes are feminine off the field, I definitely was not in my manner or my dress. As a result, in high school and college I saw myself as a freak. And this transferred into a self-image that made me believe I was not as attractive as the rest of the female population around me.

           

How did I deal with that? A few different ways.

           

First, I did little. I behaved and dressed in the way that I was most comfortable. This meant that other than for school when I had to wear a uniform, I wore pants, buttoned shirts, and sweaters with sneakers (yes, comfortable shoes!), and I never wore make-up. Hairstyles at that time were varied. I could wear my hair however I wanted. Despite the supposed have-it-your-way idea, for a high school girl, long, straight hair was the norm. This was the one bow to pop culture I made. I started to let my hair grow during my freshman year, and by the time I was a senior, it was shoulder-length, straight, thin, and lifeless. Perfect.

           

Then when I went to college, I thought I might have a brief window to reset my self-image. No one knew me or my background, and if I chose I could rewrite whom I appeared to be. So I took the first step and got my hair styled. The stylist interpreted my description in her own way and gave me a short, blunt cut. It was a disaster! But I had to live with it. I added a touch of makeup, though I didn’t need to since those were the days of the no-makeup look. I almost fit in. Since no women’s sports teams existed at my school, I focused on academics and thought I left my athletic image behind. But it was lonely. I commuted, so I didn’t have a roommate or a dorm full of potential friends, and again my shyness kept me from breaking into any group. Lucky for me, in my second year the school instituted a women’s basketball team that would play on the club level for a year then move to an intercollegiate schedule. It was the best thing that could happen for me. I had my element back when I joined the team. Finally, I felt I belonged, and my college experience turned around. I wasn’t the lonely freak anymore.

           

After college, I spent two years working at whatever jobs I could get. These included as a secretary at a newspaper, as a teacher’s aide, and as a cashier at a sporting goods store. People at each of these were friendly, and I began to have a social life. My time at the sporting goods store, Herman’s, introduced me to a world of males and females interested and good at sports, and again I was in my element. We worked, partied, and played. What a dream time for me in my mid-twenties.

           

Then reality returned. I was offered a teaching position at a local school. Of course, I took it and immersed myself in first-year teaching. I also was given an assistant coaching position in the girls’ basketball program. After a few years, I moved on to head coach of the girls’ soccer program at a sister school and added track to my assistant coaching experience. It seemed my sports background paid off.

           

But something was missing. Where was that man in my life? Did I have to choose between the enjoyment and success of athletics and the femininity and conformity of love and marriage?

I struggled with this once again. But experience or maturity gave me a new outlook. I would be true to my beginnings and my love of game. If love and marriage were to come my way, it would be brought by a man who could accept that about me. And that is the next chapter of my life.