If you know me, I am a passionate person…. but one of the things I am most passionate about on this planet is the sport of gymnastics. Gymnastics consumed a good chunk of my life and it is infused at the core of my being – I will always be a gymnast, always. I’m sitting here writing and watching college gymnastics on TV and as I sign, gasp, and cheer along with these athletes, I am forced to think about how this sport molded me into the human I am today. I started gymnastics when I was three years old, I probably had an epic wedgie and static in my hair… little did I know (or my mom) that this little journey would follow me through my life. I started my gymnastics career at a small gym that had foldable mats and performed routines during the half time of basketball games, after awhile I outgrew their education and me and my best friend Mollie joined a club gym that was 30 minutes from our houses.
My competitive journey began and I competed until I was 15 years old, traveling all over the Midwest for competitions and making lifelong friends. In the summer we spent eight hours a day, four days a week training. We wore sparkly and velvet leotards, slicked back our hair in a million pony tails for meets, and did homework on our breaks. We ate lunch and dinner at the gym and we never got sick of it. Every once in awhile we would have sleepovers on the spring floor and our we always kept our lockers decorated and packed with snacks.
It consumed my life, that training did… it broke many bones, gave me back problems, and strained my parents financially… but beyond that it taught me a lot about life. I learned early on that the kids at school didn’t train for a sport for five hours a night, that my friends were the ones I was doing life with and sometimes that meant they weren’t the ones I ate lunch with in elementary school. It taught me about poise and passion and holding your composure even if you just fell off the beam in the middle of a routine. It taught me about competition and dedication, how you might have to work a little harder at the things that didn’t come easy to you but at the end of the day it only made you better.
I learned that you have to work for what you want and being short had it’s advantages. I watched my parents work to be able to afford my love and didn’t thank them enough for the hours they spent driving us to and from the gym. I learned how to successfully hairspray your hair into oblivion so that you looked like you had a facelift and it wouldn’t move. I learned that you really don’t want to know what’s in the foam pit and that sometimes you have to rise when you fall – even if you don’t want to.
My days in the chalky gym were my glory days, while I only thought I was doing gymnastics, I now realize that I was doing life. My teammates and I still have a bond that no one will understand, we grew up in that gym, went through our first boyfriends, kisses, make ups and break ups together. We triumphed and struggled, grew too tall, got hurt, and lived our lives based around this sport that we loved. It still affects me daily whether it’s in the gym at CrossFit or the time management of my work – something I was forced to learn at a young age.
It lead me to become a springboard diver, which impacted my decision on a college, took me through four years of collegiate diving and ultimately helped me meet my husband. Gymnastics is a piece of me, day in and day out. Looking back, I wonder how my life would have been different had I not spent my youth in a gym… what would I have done, who would I have become? There is not a doubt in my mind that it was good for me, it taught me so much, and it will always be a piece of me, ’til the end.
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