Personal Reflection essay

You can learn so many valuable life lessons from playing sports. You learn how to work with others, but also how to motivate yourself and hold yourself accountable. You learn how to rise above unideal situations and how to bounce back after things go wrong. For me personally, I have learned so much from doing gymnastics throughout my whole life. But, I learned the most important lessons the day that it all came to an end. I could feel my hands sweating and my heart beating fast, as I waited for the judge to raise the little green flag to signal that they were ready for me to start my routine. I looked around the high school gym, taking in everything. The loud cheers for my teammate who had just finished an amazing floor routine. My mom sitting in the stands with tears in her eyes and a nervous smile on her face. My friend’s dad with his big black camera pointed right at me. I waved and laughed as he and his wife gave me a big thumbs up. I scanned the stands for my two best friends, Sami and Danielle, who were on a rival team, but had been on this chaotic journey through gymnastics with me since we were 5 years old. When I finally found them, a calmness came upon me because I knew that they were going to be there, like they had always been, for one of the biggest moments of my life. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, because I was the only person left to finish out the competition. All of the other gymnasts had completed their final event, except for me. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the green flag waving back and forth. I raised both of my arms in the air to salute the judge, and walked confidently out onto the blue floor. I inhaled deeply as I took the same pose I’d taken hundreds of times before. “This is it,” I whispered to myself. It was the section meet of my final gymnastics season; a competition that was very crucial for me to do well in. The section meet determines who goes to the state championship, depending on the top three overall winners and the next three highest scorers on each event. So far, I had been having the best meet of my life. I had beaten my record on each of the other events. I had been so excited and confident throughout the whole meet. I was having so much fun, which is a rare thing at a gymnastics meet, because usually everyone is nervous and on edge. I was in a position to make it to state, but only if I was able to earn the same score that I normally did on my floor routine coming up. If I didn’t, it would be the end of my season and gymnastics career. Gymnastics was everything to me. I had been doing the sport since I was 2 years old, and it was one of the most important things to me. I was a member of a club team from 1st grade to 8th grade, and then competed for my high school team for four years after that. Spending every day of the year in the gym doing the thing I was most passionate about was how I grew up. I had gotten so many meaningful things from being in this sport- My two best friends in the whole world, the hardest lessons I’ve learned, the biggest trials and most emotional moments I’ve experienced all came from gymnastics. Gymnastics defined me as a person, and my upcoming floor routine would make or break the ending of this lifelong journey. I heard the high pitched “beep” that indicated the start of my routine. I went through my dance, watching my teammates doing the moves with me from the sidelines. After my first tumbling pass, I went into my leaps and something wasn’t right. My body didn’t get off the ground and I was completely shocked. The thoughts in my mind were going a million miles per hour and I only had 20 seconds to gather them before the next tumbling pass. What just happened? My legs gave out. Am I hurt? No, I don’t think so. Okay, keep going like nothing happened. Breathe. Don’t show the disappointment on your face. Smile. Just do your leaps at the end of the routine so you can still get credit for it. Breathe. You’ve got this. Smile at the judge. Breathe. My next pass was the most difficult for me. I had been having mind blocks on it the past few meets, but I warmed it up earlier and I was ready to go. I spotted my coach in the opposite corner looking concerned for me because she knew what had just happened, but was clapping and encouraging me to keep going. I took a deep breath, ran hard, bounded off of the floor and started flipping, but something definitely felt off. I wasn’t as high off the ground as I normally was, but I pushed through into my second flip anyway. All I could see was the blue floor way too close to my eyes, and then I was laying on my back looking up at the gymnasium ceiling. My legs had given out again. “No,” I thought to myself. “No, no no no no.” I get up and see my coach. My mouth was hanging open and I was shaking my head as she was trying to tell me to keep going. Her face was one I will never forget. She looked worried and disappointed and shocked and hopeful all at once. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I faced toward the crowd in the next part of my routine and saw all of my friends and family and teammates looking back at me, completely dumbfounded. I don’t remember finishing the rest of my routine, but I did. I ran off the floor crying, but I had no idea where I was going. All I kept thinking was, “that was not supposed to happen to me.” I somehow ended up in Sami and Danielle’s arms. Even though they had been sitting in the stands with their team, they ran down onto the floor to catch me. I finally found my breath and my words through the sobs. “That can’t be the last one,” I said to them My coach grabbed me from them, took my hand and pulled me out of the gym and up the stairs into the school hallway. I was completely hysterical as she sat me down against a wall and told me to breathe over and over again. As I wiped away the tears that were clouding my sight, I saw her do the same. I wanted to do well in that routine so badly, and I know she wanted the same for me. We were both heartbroken with what had just happened. What I didn’t know was that back inside that gym, everyone else that was there supporting me, was heartbroken as well. Many of the people that were there that day- family, friends, teammates, coaches, gymnasts from other teams, and even judges- went out of their way to come up to me afterwards to tell me how sorry they were for what happened, and tell me how great it had been to watch me compete throughout the years. The love from those people was one of the many things I took away from a moment when something I loved was taken out from under me. I was surrounded by people who felt the sadness and hopelessness I felt. I can look back on that day and see that little glimmer of goodness from the compassion of others in a time that was filled with so much sadness for me. I was very bitter in the days following and it took me a while to let go of what happened. I realized afterward that what had happened during the routine was that my legs gave out from my shin splints, but I didn’t know because I had numbed them with Advil and Icy Hot. I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t go back and change it. It was a situation that I had no control over. I had to learn to let go, which is something that I have always struggled with. Something that I had wanted more than anything became a dream that would never happen, but I had to accept it and be okay with it. Now I finally am.