I did gymnastics from the time I was four until I was thirteen. Nine years of becoming someone specific – someone who was going to be the best, who was going to make it. Then the fear got bigger than the will to push through it, and I stopped. No one told me that quitting a sport at thirteen could mean losing yourself. That the work of rebuilding an identity is enormous at any age – but at thirteen you don’t even know that’s what you’re doing. All the activities, all the people, your whole life as you knew it – gone. And you are the only one left figuring out how to fill that void.
