My back is aching and my belt is too tight?

My back is aching and my belts too tight...
Okay, yes that was a cheer, granted it was a cheer circa 1992, my middle school years, 7th grade to be exact, but a cheer, a cheer that I liked, okay I mean like. And to clarify by cheer I mean an actual phrase that cheerleaders would shout as they clapped and jumped and kicked in front of a crowd while 12 year-old boys would be on the free throw line, making a lay-up, taking a TO etc... And if I remember correctly it was one of the good ones, I dare say the most requested cheer. I think the entire cheer may have gone something like this:

My back is aching and my belt is too tight
My hips are shaking from left to right
Say mmm mmgowhaw, the bears have got the power

The mmm mmgowhaw is not a typo. That’s what they yelled out, and I yelled it out too.

I really wish that back in 92 was the last time I heard that cheer but unfortunately I’ve heard that cheer at least every week for the last 13 years. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I have heard it because I say it. I say it a lot. I don’t really know why. I mean I hear the words and they are so lame, and they don’t make any sense, but I just can’t shake it.

It is not even that I can’t shake, I really think I like it. I especially like to shout it out when I am tired, or struggling to get off the couch, or when I am sore, or when I feel that I am coming down with something. I also like to sing it when others I am with are tired or sore or have any sort of look of discomfort. Sometimes when I am with people I take it and rephrase the words a bit to form a question: your back is aching and your belts too tight?

So I have been happily doing this for years…and just this last week for the first time I stopped and thought “Hold up. What in the hell am I saying? And why have I been doing this for so long? And why is it that more people in my life aren’t asking me to stop or at least making fun of me to my face in hopes that I lose the confidence to continue? Am I telling people that I think they are fat with that belt too tight comment? How is it the I still have friends? When I have a child am I going to force her to be a cheerleader, because I never was but always wanted to? Then will she grow to resent me because I turned into one of those sick moms who lives vicariously through their child?”

Listen, enough said. All I can do now is say sorry, I think I might be done. It was a good, solid, long, and yes maybe semi-unhealthy run.