When I went to school the next day I was nervous that my teacher would be angry with me or embarrass me, but she didn’t. She carried on as if no conversation had ever occurred. This intrigued me: an adult pretending that no conversation with my mom had happened, concealing the truth behind her false smile. She was an adult who was lying, and oddly, I somehow appreciated that. I tried harder to stay focused on the schoolwork, but the thoughts of gymnastics absorbed me and I repeatedly succumbed to their dominance and strength.
Walking down the hallways among the other children, I felt like an intruder. I was an alien from another planet, isolated and alone. I was the strongest boy in my grade, doing the most pull-ups, chin-ups, rope climbs, and sit-ups, but still no one wanted to hang out with me. A different vibe emanated from me; I was not like the others, and even though no one said a word, silently we all knew.
It wasn’t just the other kids I had trouble with; my middle school gym teacher didn’t like me either. Even though I was strong, he saw something in me that I think made him uncomfortable. He took my surname Putignano and turned it into “Putzy,” which I hated, and I shuddered inside every time he said it.
To make matters worse, I was the shortest boy in my class and looked much younger than I was. I had a baby face that gave me an appearance of innocence. While that worked against me with my classmates, adults babied me and treated me with great care, like I was made of porcelain.
I had no friends in school until I met Tara. We were the exact same height and there was something about her that pulled me in. I was the Earth and she was gravity. It was something primal and complex that I couldn’t explain, but I needed to be near her. We were like twins, and she didn’t like the other students either. Without any real effort, we developed a deep and caring friendship.
Her laughter and her smile kept me by her side throughout my childhood. I made a silent vow in my heart to love her until the end of time and take care of her no matter what. Tara was special to me, and I felt lucky to have her. Our friendship was more than a connection; it was as if we had known each other in another life. Tara and I could make each other laugh—one of the best ingredients for a friendship. We did everything together; she slept over at my house on the weekends and we hung out all the time during recess. The other kids at school noticed our impenetrable union and didn’t like it. It was unusual for them to see a boy being best friends with a girl.
Sometimes after school I played baseball, soccer, and football with the neighborhood kids. I loved playing sports, but there was too much standing around between actual movement. It felt like we were always waiting for something to happen, and it drove me crazy. In those moments I would kick to a handstand or do a backflip, and of course, the ball would come toward me and I’d miss it since I was standing on my hands. Needless to say, this often made the other players angry since they were as serious about their sports as I was about gymnastics. They made fun of me and my sport, and accused it of being “girlie” because of our uniforms.
I was insanely defensive of gymnastics and would try to explain that the precision of the sport demanded tight uniforms so judges could see the lines of our body and form. Few other sports require the athlete to be so tuned into their muscles that even the slightest bending of the knee means points are taken off your score. Still, my peers didn’t get that I was doing something dangerous almost every day, using my muscles and coordination in a way they’d never know to challenge the forces of physics. The happiness I garnered from gymnastics battled against the embarrassment and shame I felt from what others said to me. I loved that “girlie sport” with all my heart; I felt that I was meant to do gymnastics and I wasn’t going to apologize for it to anyone.
Soon I began to believe my schoolmates’ view of me. Their whispers, jokes, and comments infiltrated my muscles and bones. I was outnumbered, and it became difficult for me not to believe them. But instead of quitting the sport, I went deeper into my body and practice, shutting down to the outside world. I couldn’t have stopped if I had wanted to: I was obsessed. After school, before gymnastics practice, the patch of grass that my brother mowed became my gymnasium. I would drag our old mattresses onto the lawn, lining up mattress after mattress, and tumbled on them. I learned new skills on my own to take to practice that night.
After gymnastics practice, I would set up the mattresses in the basement to work on what I had learned while my brother and father drank beer and played pool. I would practice until my body could no longer take it, until each movement was just right. I never had much in common with my brother and father, who were very much alike, but somehow through my practicing I communicated and bonded with them. Though my father seemed like he was concentrating on his game, I would occasionally see him give me a fatherly glance that said, “That’s my boy.” Together in that room, as they played pool, I practiced becoming a champion, and that space and time became precious for us all.
THE SMALL BONES OF THE FINGERS AND TOES ARE NAMED PHALANGES BECAUSE THEY RESEMBLE THE GREEK BATTLE FORMATION CALLED A phalanx. IN THE PHALANX FORMATION, SOLDIERS FORMED A TIGHT GROUP WITH OVERLAPPING SHIELDS AND SPEARS.
I won first place in the state and regional gymnastics championship, which allowed me to take a trip to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I was twelve years old and invited to a camp at the training center with other select gymnasts from across the country. This would be the first time I was going to be away from my family, and the idea of leaving them was both thrilling and disturbing.
Dan’s coaching shone a light over my basic understanding of gymnastics, and I quickly absorbed his teachings. Our gymnastics team had grown in size to ten athletes, and the team dynamics had changed. Chris, the stronger teammate, was in a division higher than me because his skill level was more advanced. Even though he was better than me, I still kept him in the corner of my eye. Seth and I were in the same level, which was great because we were becoming good friends. I was sad Seth wasn’t going to the Olympic Training Center with me, but knew if I let my guard down once, he would be going instead of me.
I loved to train in gymnastics, but I hated competing. I could never sleep the night before a competition and would continuously go through my routines in my head. I would lie there for hours, covered in a blanket of sweat, religiously and compulsively going through them, making sure to occupy every memory, every physical movement to its perfection. My heart beat like a hollow drum, faster and faster, as I repeated those actions until sunrise. Those nights led to horrendous mornings without having slept a wink. My body and mind were braided into a miasma of fear: to be perfect or die.
The mornings of gymnastics competitions were just as difficult as the nights before. I obsessively checked everything over and over again, as if it were part of my routine and I was to be judged on whether I properly packed my uniform and grips, or how I executed my daily rituals. I thought that if I didn’t religiously follow that compulsion, I wouldn’t perform well. I would return to my gym bag three or four times to make sure my uniform was still there.
Early in the mornings my mom and I would get into her little gray Cougar and drive to the competition. She would be half asleep and exhausted, but happy; and I would be a nervous wreck, in my robotic mode, trying to control the uncontrollable. The drive always seemed endless, yet never long enough, and somehow, like clockwork, I would fall asleep in the backseat as the hard smell of Marlboro Reds and morning coffee washed over me. I cherish that memory and knew that just for a moment, for as long as the drive lasted, I was safe. I was with my mom, protected from my quest for perfection. In that car ride, I could just be her little boy. It didn’t matter where we were going. But those moments were never