When I thought about my worst nightmares, my parents getting divorced was one
of them. I always thought that it would limit the time I spend with each of my parents and I would be forced to decide which of them to live with. That’s exactly what happened. I got the news when I was 12 years old, when I was just starting my teenage years. I could feel my stability fall apart and in an instant, my whole life fell apart just like how I expected it but I saw it coming.
I expected to feel sad and hurt, and that’s how I felt. I was just starting my
teenage years, my friends were starting to have an interest in fashion, clothes, makeup, and boys. But all I could think of was my parent’s divorce, all I could think of was about fixing it. I thought I had to start from that problem since their divorce made our financial situation unstable. I couldn’t afford what my friends were getting or wearing but that was not the worst part. I thought I couldn’t afford a stable family and that’s what hurt me the most. I started to feel different from my friends and caused me to fall deeper and deeper within myself and I thought that nothing could show me out. I lost some friends and I fell behind in school because I was only focused on the only thing that I had control of which was gymnastics.
I got into gymnastics when I was 11 years old and the thing about gymnastics is
that it takes about a year to advance to the next level. I started at level 2 and in less than a year I was already at level 5 at the age of 12 and by the age of 15 I reached level 9. My coaches thought that I was just really good and exceptionally disciplined considering that I started gymnastics late. But there was nothing discipline about me, I was just hurting and gymnastics was the only thing that made me feel like I had control over.
I considered gymnastics to be both an individual and team sport. Even though
you are usually competing with other gymnasts and friends. My friends competed with one another but we were still a team. But I didn’t feel like the competition was with my friends or other gymnasts but rather with my feeling of agony. All I wanted was to overcome that feeling, and I did it for moments when I won first place, but the feeling was stronger than me. I just kept competing with the feeling until I quit when I was 15 years old. I quit because I moved to the USA from Bolivia and I couldn’t afford it anymore. It was not hard for me to quit gymnastics, it was time for me to move on from the feeling as I believe I was not doing it with joy but rather with agony.
Regardless, gymnastics taught me valuable lessons. I grew to realize that I learn more from losing than winning and it taught me especially how to become more disciplined within myself. In particular, gymnastics provided me a sense of control over my life that I needed in that period of time my parents were getting a divorce.
