I was 4 years old watching "Kim Possible" and I kept saying that I wanted to be just like her. No, not a crime stopping teenager, but a cheer captain.
Ever since I was 4, all I wanted was to be a cheerleader; from the first day I saw "Kim Possible," until I finally wore down my parents when I was 7 and they agreed to sign me up. When I walked onto the front field of the local elementary school in August 2006, suddenly my cool confidence was gone and I was so scared. I walked onto the team as the smallest and the youngest and with the least amount of experience.
I remember immediately getting in trouble for wearing earrings because I didn't know you weren't allowed to wear jewelry. I remember trying so hard to do a cartwheel, but not understanding how to do it. "Hand, hand, foot, foot," I'd say to myself. And when I finally landed it later that season, I could not be any more excited. I wanted it and I stuck with it. For ten years.
I stayed with that team for 6 straight summers and 3 teams, all the way until I aged out at 13 and paid it forward by coaching the little girls throughout my high school years. I had no idea back then that soon enough the roles would be reversed, and I would be the person who taught dozens of little girls how to do cartwheels and told them to take out their jewelry.
One of my fondest memories of coaching was putting pom poms into little 5-year-old hands because they were too big for them to pick up on their own. I later went on to cheer for my middle school team both years and for the high school team all eight seasons, where my senior year I was honored by being named captain. My dream from when I was a little girl was finally realized when I was 17. After 13 years of hard work and commitment, I did it.
So, if I could go back to the little girl with the uniform that was too big for her, whose hands can't quite hold up her pom poms, I would tell her that if she loves the sport, and I mean really loves it, she should continue to work at it.
If you love it so much that you wake up every morning with your routine's music stuck in your head, if you think 1 comes after 8, and if you count toe- touches in place of sheep when you fall asleep like I did, then it won't matter to you that cheerleaders are seen as superficial and dumb.
You won't care that people think all we do is cheer on the football team one day a week. Because you know that they're wrong. Do it for you, do it for the friendships, do it for the adrenaline rush that happens whenever you take the mat. Believe me that I was nowhere near being the most popular girl in school, even though I was cheer captain. And trust me when I say that popularity was never my intention with cheerleading. I would go back and tell myself that no, you will never be the best at all the components, you'll have your strengths and your weaknesses, but you will never stop loving any part of it.
To the little girl with the pom poms that are too big for her hands and the skirt that goes to her knees and keeps falling down: she's the same little girl that shouts the cheers at the top of her lungs and always has a smile on her face that's as big as her love for the sport.
She's the same little girl that will go on to be a coach and will cheer all throughout high school. She will stay with it until the last trophies are given out and she has no choice but to wipe off the glitter, untease the poof from her hair, and take out all of the many bobby pins (including the rusty and bent one that she wore to every single competition from 2006 on that she even brought to college as a good luck charm).
And if we're being honest, Kim Possible will always have a place in my heart for inspiring one of the biggest parts of my life. This is my thank you cheerleading. And to all the little girls out there, don't take this time for granted.
