Back in March, Keira was promoted a level in her gymnastics class; a class I’d secretly been hoping she’d be put into because it was in the ‘Big Person’ gym, seemed all fancy-like, and I guess I saw an excuse for me to put on my “WARNING: EXTREMELY BRAGGARTY PARENT” bumper stick on the back of the car.
Which, uh, I probably don’t even need because if you haven’t noticed, this is a ‘mummy blog’ and this the kind of stuff I’m supposed to be talking about, isn’t it?
(I’m really not sure anymore – you tell me.)
Anyway, little did I realise what kind of world both my daughter and I would be initiated into.
We walked into the High Performance Centre and already there – and had been for several hours – were older girls doing tricky layouts on the floor or the trampoline, doing deep stretches our cat would even marvel to behold.
Keira’s new coach walked up to us and said, “Hello! Welcome. This is a different kind of class than the kind you’re coming from. There will be no fluffy business here.”
I interpreted this to mean, “We play serious. Soon we’ll be able to tell you whether you’re going to be up to chop or not.”
Now, I like her new coach. She is nice, but firm. She pushes the kids, but never too far. Still, there is a competitive edge in the air whenever I step into the place that I still haven’t decided if I like or not. For example, sometimes all the kids are lined up on the bottom rung of the uneven bars and told to hold on. “It’s a competition! See who can hold on the longest!”
Passion. Drive. Grit. Strength.
These are qualities she’s learning and I can see Keira gets a little nervous and then I worry that maybe we’ve crossed a line from an activity being simply pleasurable to something more; something that, at some point, a Commitment to which will have to be made.
So I guess none of you will be surprised when I say these past two weeks Keira has dragged her heels all the way to class, asking not to go, although when she gets there she does fine. She finally told me the other day what the matter was: “It’s because I can’t do a front support bounce on the trampoline properly yet.”
When I told this to her coach, her coach laughed. “Goodness! I only just showed you that move. I have girls who still haven’t perfected it after almost a year.” She patted Keira on the back. “You’ll be fine.”
******
Eleven years ago I sat before the single sympathetic GP I ever had relating to my eating disorder. I went because, yet again, my heart was causing me pain and I was begging for an ECG to please, please check if anything was wrong.
(An ECG I didn’t get – incidentally – for another two years)
She was young and this was very possibly her first placement in a practice. She smiled at me with true compassion and asked, “Are you a perfectionist?”
Taken aback, I laughed and said, “Well yes, actually, I am.”
She nodded. “It is common for people with this kind of personality to develop eating disorders. Perfectionists need to have it done their way, and their way only, in preferably the quickest possible time.”
******
Back at the gym, it was at this point when I began explaining to the coach, “You see! There was the problem. Now I understand she can be like that if she doesn’t master something right away, she gets frustrated. She’s quite the perfectionist…”
As the words spilled from my mouth, the doctor’s visit replayed in my head in one of the most unsettling cases of déjà vu I’ve ever had in my life. I put my hand to my chest to feel it beating and wanted to fall to the floor, to cry.
From fear.
I hope I can mother her right, mother her wise, through the years to come – through the tweens and the teens, through mixed media messages she’s exposed to already without my knowing.
Because I don’t want her fighting the same battles I did.
