Tapping

I went to a great online writing class led by Fenton Johnson. (I’m pretty sure he is the same Fenton who Pam Houston named her dog after but I can’t remember the name of the essay to link it.)

Fenton said if we are called to write then we are writers and we have to do it. If we weren't supposed to do it, we wouldn’t be called.

You’d think, if this were true, it would be easier. Is this what Olympic athletes feel when they’re doing horrible, painful exercises, like they were called to lift stuff or ski down stuff even though they might fracture their spine?

I met with my Tapping Coach today. It's the same as an Olympic coach except you talk about your childhood and thump yourself on the head. This is embarrassing, but one of the items we covered was how, in my teen years, I desperately wanted to be on the Pom-Squad and tried out and didn’t make it, but they had a special extra summer try out.

I just knew it was my second chance to finally not be a loser. (Who knew I would have to keep trying for thirty-plus more years? Only a powerful psychic.)

So I told my dad I needed $300 if I got picked to be on the Pom Squad and could I please try out. Turning people down when asking for shit was a given, a special medium, an art form my parents had perfected back in my Easy Bake oven days. But instead of just saying no my dad said, “OK, you’re not going to make the team anyway.”

I think, if this had come from my mom, it would have been less of a gut punch. My dad had always liked me, he was one of the only people who still liked me even through puberty. Not in a gross pervy way. In a nice dad way.

It would have been a great story if I’d heard that and thought, I’ll show you and then practiced hard and made the team. But, alas, that is not the tale I have to tell.

Hence, the need for weird pseudo psychological tapping techniques.

But, for real, Tapping does actually make me feel better.

I don’t understand it, I guess it works in the same way acupuncture does. And/or placebo. Whatever works though, I’ll take it.