Conform

Pitching bales, playing fastball with the boys and guzzling beer were rites of passage in my farm girl youth. I excelled at all of them.

From it I learned unsophisticated confidence based on the belief that facing fears, working hard, and innovative thinking could solve everything.

While valued in rural life, these super traits landed like underbaked cookies on the gleaming power suits of corporate urbanites and credentialed males. They were as baffled by my drive to calmly question the status quo as I was by their expectation for me to silently conform.

These formative years served me well when West Nile Virus, mercury poisoning, and Lyme Disease disabled me.

I sought answers and hope from doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, naturopaths and counsellors. I read everything I could find. I returned to university.

My extensive vocabulary showed through when I questioned medical professionals’ non-answers. They became rude and dismissive in response to my search for alternatives.

They expected me to accept my disabilities. Conversely, I expected to heal.

Soon.

Life became more difficult. Friends distanced themselves. Family became busy with their own lives.  Finding employment was impossible.

The messages were clear: “Lower your expectations of life. Retire from sport. Grow fat, old, and grey. Quit searching. Accept the unacceptable. This is as good as it gets. Don’t you know? Doctors know best. Conform!”

Rather than defeat me, these messages reminded me how blessed I was to grow up among men and women who modelled what it took to survive and thrive.

My mom’s work ethic was legendary. 

Somehow, I never bought into gender socialization that dictated a female must never question an authority figure.

I came to believe, “Well behaved women rarely make history.”

I was not out to make history but be damned if I was going to accept a lesser quality of life just so others would feel comfortable in their grim prognoses.

And I healed.

By word of mouth and friends of friends I learned about technologies and healing modalities not yet known by mainstream medicine.

The sister of an old friend told me about glycosicence and that healed my nerves damaged by West Nile.

A friend of a friend taught me a supplement regime and that cleared mercury from my body.

Another friend of a friend told me about microcurrents and that healed my Lyme Disease.

And in 2005 I went to the World Masters with the Moose Jaw Relics fastball team.

Although I had been a regular starter for many seasons, for some political reason, at World Games I sat on the bench while other pick-up pitchers let the score get out of hand. Those pickups were reputed to be the best in the west but had not played organized fast pitch for years.

I sat.

I pondered.

I had learned to walk again, live free of pain, and realize what was important in life.

I was determined to NOT be seen as the complainer. I set the invisible clock in my head for 4 more minutes. At the 5-minute mark, I was going to pull off my jersey and pull on my sandals.

Suddenly, the coach called time.

Big deal.

He liked others more than he liked me. I was less than excited.

Then he waved in my direction. “Me?” I asked.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Yup.”

Oh, I would have loved to have said Fuck You. But I loved the game, and I loved to pitch, and more than anything, I loved to show people when they were wrong about me.

My inside voices argued silently. “You want me to pitch NOW that the game is a lost cause? You think I don’t have what it takes? Well, fuck you and fuck everyone that told me I’d never walk again.”

“Four runs down. Loaded bases. Nobody out,” the umpire handed me the game ball.

My poker face hid my inside voice.

If the ump read my vibes, he honoured them in silence.

“You think I don't fucking know that? I’ve been watching the disaster!” 

And to the multitudes who had written me off I took the ball with pleasure.

“Ain’t no fuckin way I’m quitting. This is as good as it gets. Maybe. Maybe it gets even better.”

My pitching held the score.

Our offence clawed at the scoreboard.

The opposition, once cozy in its lead, got lazy and misplayed an easy grounder.

Our offense laid down a bunt to move the runner to second. A single to center-right pushed home the winning run. It was a World Games Bronze Medal.

I forget where that hardware now sits.

But I remember the pressure to conform, to fold my hands, to tap out on life, to give up.

Daisy and Goliath: Stand Tall and always go another inning.