Shy.
Insecure.
Uncoordinated.
Non-athletic.
Those are the words I have used to describe myself for the first 20 years of my life. I embraced them, and they held me even more tightly in return. But the first time I timidly placed the tires of a mountain bike on single track in 2020, the face-splitting joy blew my heart and mind wide open, and little did I know, it was the the beginning of the end of those words holding me captive. Over the past two years I’ve gathered a new vocabulary to describe myself, largely from the souls I’ve met because of the bike, who believed the words for me until I could embrace them myself. So here I am.
Joyful.
Capable.
Open.
Athlete.
A Big Goal & Doing vs. Becoming
“I immediately knew why I didn’t feel right just telling about what I accomplished. It wasn’t nearly as much about what I did, but who I became in the 2 months leading up to it.”
The Difference Hope Makes
“I simultaneously want to weep at that remembrance, and also to shout victoriously and rebelliously into this quiet home that I made it here, that I am fully here, that I am so very, deeply, vividly glad to be here.”
On Shame & Being Seen
“Shaking, I looked up, exhaling a desperate apology, waiting for the pity, waiting for the disdain. Yet I see only kindness looking back at me.”
Darkness & Choosing Life
"I spent some years in a bad place you guys. You don't know from the outside. You don't f-ing know what's in someone's heart, we hold this shit too secret and I lost myself. I was thinking about ending my life…”