I was taller than most of the boys in my class in middle school. When I went to high school I was scouted to play football and played both offense and defense the whole first year. Our school year begins in August and the coach found me in June and started training me and a few other boys from different middle schools. In the morning before school we would run and lift weights and after school we would practice hitting. At first it was pretty fun. The coach loved the way I hit. He would make an example out of me to the other kids saying, "Look at Mineopoly!! He can knock down a kid twice as heavy as him." That's because you are all cream puffs. Mineopoly has four brothers and has to fight to survive everyday. You people don't fight. You're all just a bunch of lazy cream puffs. You got to play like Mineopoly if you are going to win."
When school started in the fall we came at 6:30 Am to work out. Then after school we trained again playing scrimmage games until I was so exhausted I vomited. By the end of the Fall Semester I noticed that my friends that didn't play football were growing taller than me. At that time I just thought those kids looked goofy.
By the end of the football season I was completely exhausted. I couldn't take the long practice and constant bone crushing. The next season I didn't sign up. This made my coach furious. He always used me as an example of toughness and told the other players to be like me. Now after just one year I quit the team. The problem was that this particular coach was also my gym teacher. He reported me four times saying that I had possession of something illegal when I had nothing on me. I told him he doesn't have a warrant and he told me to run laps. For no other reason than quitting the football team i was tortured three times a week in gym class by this gym teacher. Finally I couldn't stand studying there any more and I entered a local college as an early entrant.
This sounded like a good idea. I thought I was cool enough for college and smart enough. I made some mistakes though. For starters I was at least two years younger than everyone else. Another thing I realized is that I'm not a talker. A large part of the grade at this college was classroom participation and I was still shy to speak. I understood the texts, but was often too tired or just scared to verbalize my opinions. The other students weren't particularly more talented than me or better at studying. The one thing that was different was that they spoke their minds freely. I was so used to be feed information, but never questioning or making opinions or statements that would offend others.
Then it happened. The girl that lived on the third floor invited me and my roommate to her room. We laughed and had a couple drinks together. I thought she really liked me until she got a phone call. It was her old boyfriend from downstate. She went into the hall to talk, but she didn't know that the sound echoed traveled so easy when she talked. I could hear her clearly when she said,
"Oh nobody special. I'm just with some short guy right now."
My entire life up to that moment I never considered myself short, but for the first time I thought of the possibility that I'm short. I just thought I would grow later, but that was later and I wasn't growing. The football training had stunted my growth. I wasn't going to catch up with everyone else even if I did pay attention to my health and sleep well.
At the time it was a striking revelation. This was just an outward revelation, but many more revelations were to come in life. Each revelation came when someone said something directly to me. Some of them were superficial things like, "Your nose is big". Other times it was more about my inner character like the time I didn't pick up my plate from the table or offer to wash the dishes when I was invited. The host just bluntly told me, "Your selfish." It was one of the best things I heard in my life. I could see it was true and I could change. Another time I told my friend a tragic story that just happened. He didn't try to comfort me. He just looked at my face and said, "You should cry." I wasn't crying and he knew it. I was cold and had taught myself not to cry. This revelation opened my heart to cry again. After marriage time and time again I received so many revelations from my wife that I became numb. It took twenty years for me to realize that she is right. Not just about things like putting socks in the hamper, but about overcoming my limit and trusting others. The revelation that your spouse is right is one of the most important revelations to have in life. The sooner we learn this the sooner we experience the yield of a fruitful relationship.
I guess it shouldn't take a great revelation to say I can wash the dishes while I cook now^^
