Melanie D. Gibson - Kicking and Screaming: a Memoir of Madness and Martial Arts

Kicking and Screaming

Copyright 2021, Melanie D. Gibson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-028-4

E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-029-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020910155

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Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

For Margaret Blakely, AJ Wall IV, and Meredith Oney. Thanks for bringing out the best in me and occasionally putting up with the worst.

Disclaimer:This is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of my memory, and my memory alone. Names and some identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved. Some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been re-created.

U m... no, Ill break a hip, I said, raising an eyebrow and tilting my head.

The imposing, baritone-voiced master teaching the taekwondo class sighed. Rather than leaping over the stack of pads the master had set up for flying side kick practice, Id hopped daintily to the left of it. Ah, flying side kick, the bane of my existence, the barometer of my physical strength and grace... or lack thereof. I was eight months into my taekwondo training, long having graduated from the white belt class to the more advanced color belt class but still wondering what Id gotten myself into.

Its okay. I know youre scared, but you need to try again, the master said.

Wait a minute, hold up, what? I didnt want to own up to it, but maybe I was scared. I was scared of being less than perfect. I was scared of being exposed as a fraud and failing at the one thing that had finally stuck and saved me from the hellish mental mess Id created for myself.

Why couldnt I just jump?

How often do we stop short of taking a leap? How often do we let the fear of failure derail us before we even get one foot off the ground? Ive faced larger challenges than jumping over a pile of soft kicking pads: Ive done two successful stints in grad school, bought a home with my own hard-earned money, and survived the pain of disappointment and heartbreak time and again. Ive learned to be my own white knight. I was doing what women fought for the right to do for generations and was living a life that seemed problem-free, at least from an outsiders perspective. So why couldnt I do what comes so easily to children? Why couldnt I take that leap?

The weight of the world gets heavier as the years click by: the obligations, the regrets, the triumphs and mishaps. Worry and logic perch on opposite shoulders and make their seductive arguments. My ability to trust myself had diminished to the point where my heels were metaphorically and physically dug into the ground.

Perhaps this was my chance to redeem myself. Id spent most of my life wallowing in self-loathing and self-pitying anger, and that mindset had held me back from taking chances and creating a fulfilling life for myself. All right, lets do this.

My classmates and I trotted back to the front of the training room, panting and shuffling our feet. It was my turn to try the flying side kick again. The master gave me an encouraging nod. I crouched, glared at the pile of pads in front of me, took a running start, and leapt....

I wrote a memoir because I am a bad liar. Reality begs to be recorded, and its often much more interesting than fiction. My story threads began to weave themselves together in my brain when I realized with horror Id woken up as the heroine of a romantic comedy.

The thing is, I hate romantic comedies. Not only are they tiresomely predictable, rife with bad acting and sappy clichs, but they always made me feel really damn bad about being single. And yet here I was, juggling rudimentary pieces of the equation:

1. I was a perpetually single and lonely overachiever.

2. I was a career girl in a metropolitan area.

3. My pursuits of education and work were much more successful than my disastrous dating life.

4. I bought a cute home in the trendy part of town.

5. I fell for a smooth talker with a motorcycle and bad credit shortly after I started taekwondo.

6. I was at a very low emotional point when I found my salvation in taekwondo. Cue the montage of me doing knuckle push-ups, doubling over trying not to throw up while my heart is going all Keith Moon in my chest, crying at home alone in my condo, being meticulously corrected by my instructors, yelling and kicking at focus pads and preteens, gazing in the mirror at new abdominal muscles, and zoning out in an Epsom salt bath (with bubbles and a glass of wine, of course).

Crap. It was the perfect storm.

No! No! No! When I imagine my life in celluloid, its full of long witty conversations and quick camera zooms, and narrated with wry voiceovers set against ominously cheery Motown music, classic rock, and gangster rap. My dream directors would be Wes Anderson for the saturated colors, Martin Scorsese for his choice of soundtrack and delicious depictions of violence, the Coen brothers for quirky characters, or some cool independent director who most definitely does not have a romantic comedy on his or her rsum.

I dont even look like a romantic comedy heroine: Im short with the face of a Soviet Bloc mail-order bride and the bulky shoulders of a swimmer. I live in a spacious condo in Fort Worth, Texas, rather than some tiny walk-up in Manhattan. I dont have a job at a fancy magazine or a public-relations firm. My aforementioned condo is painted in bright Mexican-inspired colors with Day of the Dead skulls and Greek evil-eye charms decorating the rooms. Not an Audrey Hepburn poster in sight. Im not aching for a baby, and at this point in my life, Id rather spend whatever money Id blow on a wedding on an over-the-top trip to Hawaii... alone.

Have I made my point?

Although my story doesnt fit neatly into the romantic comedy genre, I dont think Ive quite hit the murder-and-cocaine quota required for a Scorsese film. Ill have to work on that.

Look, Im not going to sugarcoat this. I dont portray myself as the poor innocent victim or the saintly selfless heroine. Most of my problems have stemmed not from external forces but rather from the depths of the crossed wires in my own chemically imbalanced brain. To be frank: Im crazy, and my biggest challenges have stemmed from what being crazy makes me do. Im a shifty, mistrusting loner with addictions and demons to spare. I have spent years alternately isolating myself or clinging to abusive, dysfunctional relationships. I dont have a tight network of friends whom I could count on to take me to the airport early in the morning or pick me up from the hospital late at night. Im the antiheroine and sometimes the villain, but Im no cautionary tale. There is a happy ending.