The Price of Everything

The day I won the Olympic games was the day I truly lost.

I had always been a good gymnast. I knew it from the moment I stepped in the gym that I loved it; loved the smell of chalk, of feeling weightless, of the sweat that stuck to my skin as proof of my dedication and strength. I went into the JO, or Junior Olympics, program as soon as I could, so excited I couldn’t stop talking about it, thinking about it, even dreaming about it. I walked in with the rest of the kids my age and together we looked out on our dreams realized- the older girls tumbling and twisting in skills I couldn’t even name, defying gravity in a way that left me speechless and awestruck. I decided right then and there that I would do that someday, and I’d go as far as possible. I would stare at them and tense my body tightly like nothing could move me, as if just by standing still I could stand against all the doubts and fears of everyone else.

Everyone was always telling me the dangers of gymnastics, it seemed. My parents thought I was going for too many hours and that it was stressing my body too young. My friends at school gaped at the rips on my hands from bars. Other kids, doctors, teachers, physical therapists- they all raised their eyebrows when I said gymnastics, either in disbelief or pity. That’s a hard sport, they’d always say. Your growth will be stunted. You’ll break bones. You could get paralyzed if you land on your neck.

Of course I knew these things, I did. And yet it didn’t matter. They didn’t understand the elation of a flip, of a new skill, the pride at a good score or when people’s eyes widened when they saw you do something so easy for you but so impossible, so far away for them. They didn't understand my dream. I liked being the exception. I liked excelling. So even when my practices became so long and frequent that the joys began to fade- sneakily, like they didn’t want me to notice when excitement turned to a luxury- there was always one constant that drove me forward: I was going to be an Olympian gymnast. I would break records. I would be the one to go farther than anyone before.

My diet changed. School switched to mostly online. I didn’t go to parties or lounge around or watch all the movies and shows everyone else did. When I caught myself hating the words I can't, I have practice so much I wanted to scream, I would close my eyes and tense my body, picturing that first day where the path to the future was bright and clear and winding right towards me. I could do so much more than these other people, and wasn’t that more important? Wasn’t going all the way more meaningful than parties or hangouts or relationships? Soon it didn’t matter, because I was leaving school so often that I barely had time to keep my friends there.

There were the college scouts that already wanted me even as a freshman. There were the photoshoots for business commercials and promotions where everyone praised me and talked about my skill and potential. I liked those, even as fake as they felt, because then the whole world got to see that I was important. They could see it in the perfection of my smile, because only those that were truly special looked the part too.

Then there were my gym friends. I progressed through the levels so quickly that there never really was someone who had been able to stick with me through the years, but I was kind when I wanted to be and most of the new gymnasts already knew my name like a kind of celebrity, so it was easy to get along with my team. Team is a funny word though, because gymnastics isn’t really a team sport. We all know it, even if we like to deny it. You go out there alone. You get your own scores. You place on the podium by yourself and by the time they announce team scores, everyone’s already bored and ready to leave and it doesn’t matter one bit. I knew, for example, that I was the reason my team won each time. Sure, there were good gymnasts, but there were good gymnasts on all the teams. Only my club had me. Only my club had the exceptional. So when the coach began to pull me aside to check in on me or give me longer hours or set up deals and competitions and whatever else I might need, the favoring really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to my teammates.

What came as a surprise was when they turned their backs on me. They had always been closer with each other, I knew that, but I thought because I was nice and talked to them (and really, it wasn't my fault, couldn’t they see that?) that they’d be able to accept me, just a little beyond admiration. But what started as small whispers turned into events I wasn’t invited to, conversations that would abruptly stop when I walked by, stares that I couldn’t tell anymore how much were awe and how much were some sick, twisted envy.

Finally, I told my parents I wanted private practices. I said it as we were eating dinner on my fifteenth birthday, at a Thai restaurant I knew I used to love back when I could eat my favorite dish, and my parents, who were always sweet and generous but of course forgot this fact, had booked a reservation. I stomached the conversations where I reminded them about the diet, feeling guilty about the frowns on their faces and then hating that they were making me feel guilty at all. Halfway through when I was bobbing my spoon up and down in the curry to watch the ripples, I told them what I wanted, just like I had rehearsed. The Olympics would be next year, and I would be sixteen. Everyone knew I was ready. Practicing with the other girls now only weighed me down.

They exchanged that glance they sometimes did when they were confronted with my resolve, as if somehow after all these years they were expecting me to back out. (Sometimes they’d say it, as they closed the door to my room after wishing me goodnight or casually in the car- You know, if you ever wanted to do something besides gymnastics, we would still support you fully. I always went still and responded with, why are you saying that? Do you think I can’t do it? Those conversations always ended badly.) I looked at them now with the same kind of tense dread, more because I was unsure of what they’d say than if they’d actually do it. They always did everything I asked. Mostly because my decisions were always clearer than theirs, a straightforward life that was actually possible, in comparison to their go with the flow, indecisive, love-solves-all approach. I did our trip planning if my coach wasn’t doing it. I handled all the emails concerning me, all the letters, all the texts and meetings. They let me, smiling and saying they could never be so responsible. I knew I should have felt grateful for the freedom and generosity, but I could only sigh when they said it, turning away and thinking bitterly, guiltily, yeah, you really couldn’t. The only reason this world will remember you is because of me.

“Of course you can do private practices,” Dad said at last. “You mentioned your coach had already talked to you about those, right?”

“Yes,” I responded, watching a ripple get all the way to the edge of my bowl. There was another pause where I knew they’d be looking at each other again.

“Keyla,” Mom started, and I braced myself. “You know we just worry sometimes. You’re an amazing gymnast and we all admire your dedication to this Olympic goal, but don’t you ever get lonely?”

I snapped my head up. “You think I’m lonely?”

Mom sighed. “Well, you’re fifteen now, and we know you don’t bring friends over-“

“I don’t have time for friends,” I said dryly. “I wouldn’t want to be friends with the girls at practice anyway. You guys always come back to this friend thing, but maybe that’s just you, alright? You’re content to live a mediocre life, fine, but I’m not. You don’t know what it’s like to be this good, you’ve never had the passion that I do. You try to push all these things you care about onto me, but they’re your goals, not mine. You think friends are the height of importance only because you’ve never been good enough to think about something bigger.”

There’s a silence in which both of them stare at me with glassy eyes. The waiter comes by then with a huge smile, interrupting whatever they might have said.

“I heard we have a birthday here,” she said cheerfully, then caught out faces and her smile dropped. It was too late. Three other waiters had already come up behind her and started singing happy birthday, one of them setting a giant bowl of ice cream down on the center of the table. A candle flickered at the top of it, wavering slightly as the song finished and everyone in the restaurant cheered. When they left the three of us stared at the bowl, watching the flame slowly die and the ice cream eventually melt.

I was sixteen and I’d made it through the Olympic trials. I’d made it to London, I’d met the team of gymnasts I had long since admired, who now knew my name. I got the clothes, the leotard, the gentle comradery from the older athletes, the London sights and sounds, everything, everything, everything.

Constantly I was nervous. I had never been nervous before, not like this. For once I felt so out of my depth that I felt like anything could happen. I was surrounded with the best of the best, people who could do things I couldn’t, amazing people, talented people, smart people, and I was still just a kid. I was a kid who knew no one, who knew nothing, who had hardly lived because my life had been this, this ladder of preparation, the entire time. This had been a dream I kept chasing, kept believing wholeheartedly, and now that I was here, I was lost. I was at the end of the path, and I was lost. I had to remind myself that the tightness in my chest was excitement. I walked the streets of a foreign country with my parents who I hardly talked to anymore, and I felt so small. The world was so large and full of so many things and I had missed them all.

I performed as I always did- exceptionally. I won, and I won, and I won, and then there was a gold medal around my neck, and the crowd was cheering but I couldn’t hear them, and I was looking at their faces but I couldn’t see my parents, and I was smiling my perfect smile but I wanted so badly to cry. Mom, Dad- they were lost in anonymity, amounting to nothing, and yet I knew they were probably clapping for me and grinning with their full hearts, with all their beautiful love. Here I was, the star, standing above them all, and my heart was breaking.

Now when I had my victory at last, all I wanted was to curl up in my parents’ arms. Call the friends I hadn’t seen in forever. Eat ice cream and go to school and skip practice and worry about my next math test instead of whether today I might get hurt and end my career.

I stepped down from the platform and people were congratulating me. My idols were congratulating me, my coach was hugging me, saying I’d done it, saying I was amazing, saying I could do anything. It was true. It was so, painfully true. I could do anything, and yet out of all the possibilities, I had stuck to one like there was strength in denying myself change, like success would always equate happiness.

Here I was having chosen what felt like everything, only to end up with nothing that mattered.