chronicles of a chunk: part V

you know how when you were in middle school and you went to summer camp or camp with your class for a week? you had fun meeting new kids your own age, roaming the woods, tasting the random forage that the nature guide pointed out, getting scared on the night hike, sleeping in a cabin for the very first time, chasing squirrels and understanding the meaning of the word "homesick?" remember that? all good times, right? wrong! remember those trust and team building games/exercises? they were supposed to teach you to let go and trust others, as well as teach you to work together. well there are two in particular that i hated with a passion.

the trust fall- you are standing on a plank or a table or something that is high above the sea of people behind you. you're faced away and they are supposed to stretch their arms out to catch you when you completely go limp to fall directly into their arms. most people have a fear that they're going to be dropped on to the floor causing bruising and embarrassment. for me, i was terrified that all of that heaviness i was "hiding" underneath my baggy sweatshirt and baggy jeans was going to be discovered once each persons hands would feel the weight of me when never failing gravity would plow me into their weak little arms. poor arms, they didn't stand a chance. i truly hated it. and while i was never aware of anybody really making fun of me for my size (aside from my brother, but he was a tiny little twerp anyway. love ya, bro!), i was always fearful that they might start.

get each person over the wall- so you have, i don't know...ten people on one side of a wall and you need to get everybody over the wall with nothing but your own strengths. the point is to work as a team. at this point everybody is sizing everybody else up. who is the shortest/tallest, who is the strongest/weakest, and worst of all, who is the heaviest. it's necessary to figure out the statistics to strategically get everybody over the wall. but to me, not only did i just fall into a bunch of peoples friggin' arms but now it's forced upon me to have them lift me up like dead weight? who thought this thing through? why didn't they think of the self esteem issues people are going through when they thought up this "team building" stuff? did they not realize that i was basically the equivalent of a large log? and worse off, what about the people who were even bigger than me? the reason i'm crying inside while you all attempt to raise me over your shoulders is because i don't want you to realize how gigantic i am.

so, to this day i don't like it when people try to pick me up. call it a complex.