dear high school gym teacher

The following are a list of things I still can't do.

1. I still can't serve a volleyball. Or set it. Or bump it (to be fair, I haven't tried any of these things). Keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't show up on my bar exam.

2. I'm still not a fast runner. (I actually have gone running though, so high five to me). The good news is, if I'm being chased by a serial killer, I will able to accomplish my life long dream of writing LOL in my own blood. (Police, take note. Should you find a female body with LOL written in her blood, this is not a new development in the serial killer's MO. I just thought it would be hilarious.)

3. I am surprisingly flexible (no thanks to you). College has left me unstretched, so I'm working on getting my split back--but still, I had it, back when you thought a simply calf stretch would leave you good to go. So screw fake hockey. I can drop it like it's hot.

4. Your class made my already severe depression that much worse. It's absolutely absurd that I was being graded on how fast I ran--sure, I can run faster with training, but news flash, I'm not going to turn into Usain Bolt in a span of five weeks. I am a slow runner. I have AP classes that I threw myself more into because that was more important to me than being ready for the track team. What's even more absurd is how I consider how important my grades were to me. A bad grade made me want to reach for a knife in slit my wrists. It was a personal issue I needed to work through, an illness I needed to overcome--but there was no use in worsening it because I couldn't run two miles in twenty minutes.

5. Your class didn't motivate me to exercise. In fact, it turned me off from it. I would avoid exercise so I wouldn't be reminded of the humiliation I had faced that day, and instead I would either starve myself as punishment or drown myself in ice cream.

6. I am healthy (mostly), even though I love cake. I am learning to love myself. Where gym class magnified my flaws, I am choosing to magnify my talents. I am choosing to be more.

So turns out, gym class didn't even matter. Nobody has asked me what my grade was or how many games of volleyball I won. If you love gym class--awesome! Go ahead and get your

energy out by dribbling that ball. And if you don't, if you loathe it like I do--it doesn't matter. In the long run, no one cares how well you did in gym class. And chances are, gym class isn't really going to help anybody. It probably won't help the kids who are good at it to get a job, and I know you're going to get those scholarships because you're a beautiful human being who's going to show the world that you are more than a grade or a speed or a score.

Keep taking care of yourselves, Dreamers.