The deeper wound, the one that took me longer to name, is that I used to say “but I’m a cheerleader” as an apology. I would be in an advanced literature seminar, and someone would mention that I cheered, and I would rush to add: “But I also read Pynchon. I’m getting a 4.0. I promise I’m not just—” And I would stop, because I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Not just what ? Pretty? Loud? Happy? A girl who claps?
Here is what people don’t understand about cheerleading: it is not a denial of intellect. It is a discipline of projection. You learn to count in eights while holding a flyer’s ankle. You learn to smile so wide your cheeks ache, even after you’ve dropped the stunt and your back hits the mat. You learn that timing is a kind of truth. You learn that loud is not the opposite of smart —sometimes, loud is the only way to be heard over the roar of a gymnasium full of people who have already decided you don’t belong.
She’s used to it. And she’s already counted you in. but i 39-m. cheerleader
I mean: you see a skirt. I see armor.
It took a philosophy professor—of all people—to cure me. We were discussing performative utterance, the idea that saying something makes it so. I raised my hand and gave an example from the football field: a cheerleader shouts “Defense!” and suddenly thirty thousand people are stomping in unison. The professor smiled and said, “That’s not performative. That’s magic.” The deeper wound, the one that took me
After class, she asked what I wanted to write my final paper on. I said I didn’t know. She said: “Write about the magic. Write about what it costs to be the one who makes everyone else feel brave.”
So when I say “but I’m a cheerleader” now, I mean something specific. I promise I’m not just—” And I would
“Yes. And?”
The room went still. He blinked. I watched him try to fit that square peg into the round hole of his insult. In his mind, cheerleader meant pompoms, spirit fingers, the girl who lifts others up so they can score. It did not mean logical fallacies, eye contact during a rebuttal, or a closing statement that made the judge nod. He had called me frivolous. I had agreed with him—and then redefined the entire dictionary.