Cheerleading was something I chose to pursue on and off in my very early childhood. I looked up to all of the cheerleaders in the movies I watched. Being in cheer fulfilled my girly needs, and I had a lot of fun learning all the chants.

I stopped for a few years as a result of moving around and dealing with my parents splitting up. However, once everything started to settle down, I decided to join my school cheer team in the fourth grade. 

When you are a child, it is quite easy to make friends. That’s how it was in the beginning. Everyone talked to everyone because we were all friends and although there were select friend groups, cliques didn’t matter. So, it wasn’t a big deal to me that I didn’t have a select best friend in cheerleading (My friends did softball), I just talked to whoever I stood beside at the games. I always had at least one person to talk to who would in turn talk to me back, and that was enough for me.  

It was like this for the first two years of cheerleading, from fourth to fifth grade. However, things started to shift in my identity when I entered the sixth grade. At 12 years old, I discovered that along with puberty, I had a lot of built-up angst that only flourished when I met a new set of friends who would introduce me to emo music, scary stories, and pretending to be sad.

When I look back on this time it is easy to cringe or to be embarrassed, but it was honestly and ironically the time of my life when I was the happiest. I was an emo cheerleader, in a small Arkansas school outside of Fayetteville where everyone tries to be city folk while still holding onto their country identity.  

As it turns out, even popular girls can have angst in their preteen years. I remember vividly the moment when I realized I had been fully rejected by my cheer team. Rain was pouring down the morning of game day, with all of us girls underneath the awning of the concession stand. I was looking out at the rain and listening to the background noises of talking when I shifted my attention to my immediate surroundings.

Looking around, I found that every single girl was talking to another person or was in a group. Every girl but me. No one acknowledged me, and I knew that if I tried to join a conversation, I would be looked at sideways. I knew I had been omitted and rejected. I finished out the season and when it was over I decided I didn’t want to continue cheer, even though I was confident I could make the team the following season.

I stuck with my group of friends and while it stung a little that I was not wanted by the cheer team, I was happy that I still had a place where I belonged.