Friday, August 10, 2012

behold the power of balls

while out walking with my honey last night, we stumbled into an amusing conversation. it was about power, or more accurately, the feeling of being powerful.

the first time i remember ever feeling that i was powerful was when i was about seven years old. i was out running around the neighborhood with my posse of elementary hooligans. i'm not sure what game we were playing, but one of the boys caught me from behind. he had his arms wrapped tightly around me, pinning my arms to my sides as i struggled to find a way to free myself. no amount of squirming could break me loose, so i started kicking. one grand kick straight up and backwards bought me instant freedom. the boy released me and i scampered away, giggling and squealing, but not entirely sure why he'd let me go.

when i got a few paces away, i looked back and saw him laying on his back, moaning and holding his crotch. i stopped running and cautiously walked back toward him to see what was wrong or if he was just trying to trick me. several of the other boys in the group ran over and stood around him in a circle with looks of horror and sympathy on their faces. they placed gentle cupping hands of protection over their own crotches and then turned to look at me. they looked afraid.

i wasn't entirely sure what had happened with my kick, but suddenly i had the begrudging respect of all the boys on my block and there was murmured talk of balls. i didn't see any balls around, but whatever they were talking about, i knew i'd found a source of power in myself. an unexpected chink in the armor of the more physically power males of the species.

and with that knowledge, i skipped off, arm and arm with my best girl friend, singing a silly ditty and pondering those mysterious balls.


what about you? when do you feel powerful?

i posed that same question to my husband and he said, jokingly, that it was when he knocked me up. i'm sensing a testicular theme here... is there power in the world that isn't linked to balls?!

15 comments:

  1. Honestly, the first time I felt truly powerful was as a teenager, when I was able to turn the head of a boy I really liked. He hadn't noticed me the year before but I grew boobs and got a tight shirt and...ta-da! I had the power to get a boy's attention.

    I was going to say that that was boob-linked power rather than ball-linked but in a way, I guess it could still be considered somewhat ball-esque.

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  2. Now, I would have to say that I would agree with Eva.

    But before I married the amazing man I have now, I was married to a very not amazing man. A man who caused me so much damage that it took years of therapy to reverse, and the scars run deep still. My most powerful moment was when I didn't just look good on the outside, but had truly healed on the inside, and I realized that no matter what he said, or did... it had no effect. He could no longer make me cry or feel like I was worthless.

    And even more important... he could no longer do that to my boys either.

    And that moment when he looked at me and TOLD me that he was so wrong for letting me go... it was awesome to be able to walk away.

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    1. yay for walking away and using the experience to make yourself a better person rather than sinking down and letting it become an excuse to wallow.

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  3. Eva hit the nail on the head (pardon the double entendre image). Trust me, you ladies could get us to do mostly anything with your power. Of course, that power is transitory. Then, we are overcome by the power of "The Nap."

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    1. i'm often overcome by the power of the nap before i get around to using my female powers.

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  4. Exactly! We-women-do indeed have all the power.

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  5. I can assure you that I've never felt like I had any power.

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  6. I have to love this Sherry, it's such a crazy sounding kind of power haha, I'm with Stephen though, I haven't really felt powerful in a very long time.

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  7. ha ha, seriously, Sherilin...the things you do. Always make me giggle.
    Great Balls of Fire girl....you conquered right then and there.

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  8. I used to feel really powerful in university when I had managed to go X amount of hours without eating. Not a popular thing to say, but there it is. In the middle of so much uncertainty and stress, there was that one thing I could control.

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  9. so you were playing some game and then kicked a guy in the balls, and that made you feel powerful and important. good job.

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    1. lol! i was a little kid and didn't even know what i was doing other than trying to escape.
      and i didn't say it made me feel important. just powerful in the sense that i figured out, through an accident, how to get away from a boy who was bigger than me and wouldn't let me go.
      dork. way to stay anonymous out of fear.

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  10. I first felt powerful when I got my bionic woman running shoes. I was convinced I could run faster than anyone else. I also felt powerful when I worked as a chambermaid in my early 20's, because I could flip a mattress all by myself no prob and the other maids were surprised. Then, there was a long stint of powerlessness until I started working out 6 days a week. BOO YAH!!!

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don't let me be the only one doing the talking around here. spill your guts!