TreeHouseView

In middle school, or junior high as we called it back in the day, I was a cheerleader in 8th and 9th grade. My best friend and I tried out as seventh graders in front of the entire school, as did multiple other pairs of hopeful seventh and eighth grade girls–all hoping to making the squad and be popular.

We might have had a slight advantage, as Jen’s older sister was a ninth grader and on the squad, wildly popular and feral enough to scare me into submission in her presence, but I don’t doubt for one minute that her relation to us helped secure us a spot on the Junior Varsity Cheer Squad.

Once we were cheerleaders, we were required to dress in our cheer uniforms on game days and for other events, and that meant wearing the uniform all day to school. I loved these days, and I loved the uniforms for so many reasons. One of those reasons was that it didn’t require me to think about what I was going to wear. I didn’t have to put any effort into an outfit that would hopefully pass muster with the Fashion Chain of Command that started with my mother, and probably ended with some girl at school whose fashion sense I envied and could never come close to emulating.

We had two uniforms, one that was the classic cheer sweater that was paired with a pleated skirt (my favorite of the two) and the other was a sort of jumper with a straight skirt (boring and with a bib and overall-like straps on the upper half that I wasn’t ever super excited to wear. I don’t remember the criteria for why we wore one uniform versus the other–maybe home games as opposed to away games–but I do remember the disappointment I felt every time we were required to put on the overalls-looking getup.

I was blessed (cursed if you asked me back then) in the chest area and as a young teenager, this was mortifying. Add some bunchy material that called even more attention to the area and there is yet another reason that I wasn’t too keen on the benchwarmer uniform. I was doing everything I could to call people’s attention away from The Girls and here comes Ma Butterick with her simple sew pattern for this atrocity of a uniform that did only a disservice for me and my upper half.

Even with that trauma swirling around, I wouldn’t have given up uniform days for anything. I also loved the feeling of belonging. Yet somehow as an adult looking back, that brings on some feelings of shame, as I look back and know I could have and should have done better. I know that I’m more of a follower than a leader most of the time. I am more comfortable sitting back and observing and looking to see where I fit in before I join the fray. I’m almost too cautious.

So short skirts and and tight sweaters were antithetical to this, and thrilling enough to feel like I was exceeding the speed limit every time. Had I tried to wear a “real” skirt that short to school, I would have been grounded for all of eternity. So somehow the uniform struck a balance in my limited wardrobe–limited by my mother, school rules (which ironically would have probalby sent me home for a skirt that short as well outside of the cheer uniform, but the short shorts of the 80s were a-ok) and in my mind, as it gave me more choices, as odd as that may sound.

I have always said that I’m a proponent of uniforms in school for many reasons, and several of them lie buried in these scribbles–the donning of a uniform takes the anxiety out of the daily wardrobe worries, it brings a sense of collective unity to the group it represents and it also provides a balance to the “other” side of life, the time when you do get to choose what you wear.

It’s a little bit like happiness and sadness–can you really appreciate one without the other?