What is and isn't

I remember how I felt the day I discovered my dad had a jumprope.

Mine was pink, with glitter stuck in the plastic rope. I think it had pompoms coming out of the handles; they made a swishing sound like waves when I turned them in my hands. I liked to jumprope a lot. We jumproped a lot at school, but we had to use actual pieces of rope, which weren't nearly as fun as my rope at home. They didn't make the same tap tap on the ground like mine did, like tap shoes. Plus the ropes were all in varying lengths, and I seemed to always get stuck with one that was too short. I was good at crossovers.

I liked double-dutch. I wanted to be like the girls I saw on "Sesame Street." They were really good at double-dutch, so good they went to competitions. They wore cool beads in their hair. My mom said girls like me didn't wear those kinds of beads in their hair. I didn't know why.

Jumproping was a game to me. It was for fun. Only little girls jumproped, like how only girls play hopscotch. That's just how it was.

So the day I discovered my dad had a jumprope, I realized everything I knew was wrong.

Now I want to jumprope like this guy.