In high school, friends from another school, who nonetheless knew my mother,
assumed I was a cheerleader.
They judged me based on my size,
my smile,
my personality.
But I wasn't and never had been a cheerleader.
My colleagues who only know me as the teacher who cannot say "No,"
assume that in high school I was the student leader.
The student involved in every activity,
especially Student Council.
But I wasn't ever involved in Student Council.
If you really knew me, you would know that I was a caver.
Not spelunking, that's what you non-cavers call it.
I was a belly-crawling in the mud,
through an opening that not even my hard had would fit through,
through an opening that my now after-birth hips would never fit through,
CAVER.
