babybeezer

when I was in 6th grade I tried out for the girls CYO basketball team. Everyone else started playing basketball when they were in 4th grade, so I was behind. However, I was a super star soccer player and was in excellent shape so I though hell I'll give it a go. I went to try outs and end up gettting put on the A team with all the super star basketball girls. I was so proud of myself. I thought wow, that's awesome that you have less experience and yet could hold your own with those girls and that the coach saw potential in you to be a great player. As the season progressed, I noticed that my coach was only playing me the absolute minimum time that he was required to play each team member in the games: 2 minutes 30 seconds. He'd put me in, and as soon as my 2:30 was up he'd take me out. He also never played me in practice. I just thought "well, these girls have more experience, of course they'll get more play time." By the end of the season I was so frustrated that I went to my coach and asked why he never played me in games or in practice for that matter, and why did he put me on the A team if he was never going to play me, why not put me on the B team?

"Well Kathryn," he said "you've got an amazing attitude. You inspire people around you to do their best, and we really needede someone like that to boost our team morale." So basically I was a goddam cheerleader for his team. I was so upset by this that I quit basketball, and to this day have an aversion to it.

I feel like this is the story of my fucking life these days. No, not just these days, it always has been.

In summer plays when I kept getting smaller and smaller roles and I thought it was because the other girls were better than me (or at least I told myself that because deep down I knew I could sing and act circles around them) when my mom told me recently it was because the director said she loved my positive attitude and that I really brought the other chorus members up with me, and that that other girls would have given her hell if she didn't give them good roles, but she knew I'd understand.

In middle school my best friends shit all over me continualy to make themselves feel better because they knew I'd understand and forgive them in the end.

In class I always had to sit next to the "difficult" aka pain in the ass kids because I was "so good with them"

The list goes on and on. And you know what? I'm fucking sick of being everyone's cheer leader. I want to be somewhere WHERE I AM REWARDED FOR MY ATTITUDE, MY WORK ETHIC, MY OUT LOOK NOT PUNISHED FOR IT.

I hope to god (who I don't even believe in) this my experience here in this program will not be indicative of my future career, because if it is, I don't know what the fuck I'll do. It's going to kill my soul.

My teachers have nothing but the absolute highest praise of me and my work, saying how much they love to work with me, and what amazing things I produce. And yet none of them have every cast me in a fucking one of their shows. And yet they say "don't get discouraged, you're attitude and love of the work will take you so far, get you roles, people will want to work with you" Well my question is why the fuck aren't you working with me NOW if you love me so fucking much?!?!? And they all come up to me when it's said an done, tell me what a "difficult decision it was not to cast me" it really kept them up at night because I did such amazing work. Fuck you, don't tell me that.

What do I have to do to get people to recognize me and REWARD my work? Do I have to be a bitch? A prima donna? An oversensitive sap? WHAT?!?!? Because this fucking sucks.

Funny that I'm so upset right now because I just came from a meeting with my professor in which he basically stroked my ego for an hour telling me how amazing I am, how much I stick out from my classmates, how fantastic my work is, how sucessful I'll be in this profession, but it didn't make me feel good. And he said "I just hope you don't get frustrated because you aren't getting cast, and if you do, come talk to me becase I think you're amazing and you've got the best attitude in this whole program."

And I wanted so badly to punch him in the face.

I feel taken advantage of, and that feels shitty.