The Gym by Betsy

 

Throughout my school years, kindergarten through high school, even in college, gym was my favorite subject.  I loved gym.  I suppose I loved gym class because I always caught on quickly, I was never behind or bored, I understood the subject matter perfectly, I easily passed all the tests, I was always happy to be there in class.  What teacher wouldn’t adore me?  I loved gym, I really loved gym.  And I loved my gym teachers too.  I even started to pursue a career as a gym teacher at the age of 40 something.  I enrolled in graduate school.  I was going to earn a masters degree in gym.  I would become a master of gym!  I actually did not finish this pursuit.  Somehow as a subject of study and reflection, rather than an activity, I found it un-stimulating and uninteresting.  I barely got started when I thought better of it and went to work in the human services field.

There was a brief period of time during my high school days when gym--at least what I considered REAL gym---real gym class was absent from my weekly schedule.  I was 15 years old in 1950.  Because of my father’s work my family had to pack up and leave our home in Mountain Lakes , New Jersey.  We had to move to a new town, a new state, a new part of the country. 

“Oh well.  There’s a high school there.  It can’t be that different from what I have known,” I thought.  Little did I know. I was too young and inexperienced even at the advanced age of 15 to realize that I was in for a culture shock--big time.

I soon found myself adjusting to life in small town Louisiana, the antithesis of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.  They didn’t even speak the same language there.  I spoke New Jersey, they spoke Deep South.  Oh well, things would get better when school started.  There were all those classes to look forward to and lots of sports, right?  This IS high school, after all.  

Did I say I was in for a change in culture?   I soon learned that this

definitely was a culture very different from what I had known, for a girl in particular. I was soon to learn that girls do not do sports in this culture.  Girls do not sweat.  Girls do not exert themselves physically.  Girls do not “overdo.” Girls do not overdo especially when it’s the wrong time of the month.  In fact, when it’s the wrong time of the month, girls are allowed to skip gym.  Skip gym!  Oh no!  Please don’t make me skip gym!  I love gym.  Gym keeps me going all day.  Gym is the high point of the day for me.  Except, in the new culture, it turned out, gym was not such a high point because we didn’t do much really.  Gym was, well, really, really puny.

 I quickly learned that in many coeducational high schools in the the deep South in 1950 girls’ participation in sports amounted to watching the boys.  First of all, I did not want to watch the boys.  I was not interested in the boys (although I pretended to be), and I was not interested in watching sports.  I wanted to be doing the sport.  But, alas, I lived in the land of southern BELLEDOM.  I would have to adjust to a rather passive existence when it came to athletics.

Youth often facilitates an easier adjustment to new things, and I did adjust to the southern culture.  I pretended to be interested in the boys, and I did become involved in the athletic events......as a CHEERLEADER.   In the realm of the gym this was as close as a girl could get to being an athlete.

Yes, I did adjust, but only superficially.  As soon as high school was over, I returned to the east and attended a women’s college where I could participate in most sports and not worry about working up a sweat.  Oh yes, and sure enough, I fell in love with my college gym teacher too.  (Incidentally, I do believe I have never met a self-respecting lesbian who had not fallen in love with at least one of her gym teachers.)

Now in my dotage, retired and all, now that I am free to spend as much time in the gym as I want....It’s amazing how easy it is to find a way to avoid the place.  Excuses abound when I’m feeling lazy or aching.  But then, the next thing I know, I’m missing that gym.  There goes that voice in my head again. 

“Time to go to the gym, Betsy!”

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus,  OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).  She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years.  Since her retirement her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.