I didn’t wake up and think, This will be a day I remember forever. I probably woke up and asked my dad to take me to Burger King for a sausage, egg, and cheese Croissan’wich. Because this was summer, this was middle school, this was 2003.
Later that night, the setting was suburban. The occasion was a friend’s birthday party, a co-ed, swimming, backyard birthday party. The menu: pepperoni or cheese. The soundtrack: “What’s Luv?” The ambition: Stealing bases behind parents’ backs.
The pool had a catapult disguised as a diving board. You could stand with your feet at its edge, squat down, then stand up and find yourself in a front flip. But that was old hat for me. I’d been front-flippin’ since third grade. I wanted to do what I’d just witnessed my buddy do—a gainer, literally the coolest thing I’d ever seen accomplished. Maybe it was Ashanti’s voice in my ears, maybe it was the pubescent charge to impress my girlfriend or suffer injury in the process, maybe it was destiny. I asked my friend to teach me how to gainer.
First attempt: back buster, massive embarrassment in front of girlfriend, lots of jeering from friends. Second attempt: less awkward back buster, equal embarrassment, louder jeering from friends. Third attempt: resembling a fish being thrown back into a lake. Fourth attempt: traumatic, probably should’ve had my c-spine stabilized. Seventeenth attempt: successful gainer, stratospheric rise in self-esteem, no jeers, no friends left at the party.
See something cool, figure out how to do it, discover something about yourself. Rinse the chlorine off, repeat. A template for living, and one I hope to embody no matter my age, no matter if anyone is watching.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
