Body Slam
Someone used this expression to talk about Blitzer not letting Gingrich get away with his attacking the media lines. My dad used to body slam me. I didn’t start with that sentence because it sounds like I was abused as a child in a really bizarre way. No, he’d pick me up, spin me around, and then throw me down on the bed. It was like I was doing belly flop, but instead of a painful red stomach I got to bounce up and down on that mattress. God those were fun.
He’d throw all of us kids up and out of the water in the pool on vacation, even when we were “too old for it.” We weren’t ever too old for it.
He let me get snorkeling gear when we were in Hawaii, even though I never went in the ocean with it, I only used it to see around the pristine resort pool. He swam through that stuff with me when I was in middle school.
My parents never forced me to grow up. They encouraged me being me, and I was apparently always 8 years old. In a mature kind of way, I guess. I just liked running around, playing tag, climbing trees, being a kid. It’s exactly what parents should do.
But things weren’t easy in the real world. When I wasn’t in the safety of summer camp or my backyard, when I was in school, I was a fish out of water. I didn’t know how to dress or paint my face up or fix my hair or even act in the bitchy, appropriate way for my age group. On an out of uniform day I went into school wearing a button down shirt stamped with cow skulls. My dad had bought it for me along with a bunch of other western stuff. Perfect for a rodeo, a cookout, a dude ranch, but it made me a laughing stock at school. I chose to wore it, by the way. I saw it in my closet and my gut was that I loved it and I wanted to wear it. But as soon as I got to school and saw the way people were looking at me, I realized my mistake.
My mom would let me be whoever I wanted. So would my dad, but I think a part of me always felt, and continues to feel, that he wanted me to stay young. I was the last one. The last chance. When I grew up it was over. So I aged but didn’t act it or show it. When I did, when I allowed myself to be like everyone else, when I bought a bikini, I regretted it when my dad found out about it. These tendencies to be like girls my own age, whenever I acted upon them I was betraying my true self and my dad. I hated the feeling. I hated squirming around it. I just wanted to be me, and so did my dad, so it was okay, right? It’s why I pushed against clothes and make up for so long. It’s why I resented getting dressed up for fancy dinners and letting Jane put me together. When she made me look the way I should look, it showed that I had the potential, I just didn’t want to act on it.
But I had to grow up. I had to learn how to function as a young woman. And I got a crash course once dad left. Jane taught me everything I know, and after a year or two I was able to put things together myself. It certainly wasn’t an overnight transformation (she’d gotten me good clothes and taught me the beginnings of makeup just when I’d settled on some truly ugly glasses and an awful short haircut) but it happened. Dad not being there, and dad never again meaning what he used to, meant that I could start to reach my potential without regret. Well, there’s always some lingering regret.
He doesn’t comment on it much, but I can tell he knows he’s missed out on that change. I don’t know if he knows it’s largely because of him. Not entirely, but largely. When he comes to visit I genuinely enjoy getting dressed up. I love trying my best to look like Jane. It’s my way of showing what I can be, who I am now, and trying to express what exactly he’s missed. And when you think about it, it’s not at all triumphant. It’s really quite sad.
Who doesn’t want to get thrown out of a pool? Or sit on their dad’s back like a horse? Or get body slammed into the pillows? I’ll take my make up off tonight and want all of that for the moment that I see myself in the mirror.
