School

I was born “double-jointed,” this isn’t an actual term, but it is what most people know it as: A better term for it is hyper flexibility. Growing up, I played every sport my parents could get me into, including gymnastics. My twin sister was an amazing gymnast, she could do all the flips, jumps, everything…and then there was me. You’d think being super flexible would be good for gymnastics, but that wasn’t the case. My shoulders are so overly flexible that I couldn’t support myself for flips, and I couldn’t hang on the bars because they would pop out of socket. It didn’t hurt physically, but it did hurt mentally. Because I was unable to do most things, I switched to rhythmic gymnastics. Rhythmic gymnastics is literally gymnastics for insanely flexible people, but I couldn’t even do that. My shoulders were so flexible that I couldn’t catch the weighted ball we were supposed to throw around. So, there was the end of my gymnastics career. I didn’t love gymnastics so it wasn’t a huge deal, but because my twin sister was so good at something that I couldn’t do I was infuriated. At that time I became obsessed with swimming. I began swimming when I was 3, and by the time I got to high school I figured I would have to stop that too because my school didn’t have a swim team. But it just so happened that the school was starting a swim team my freshman year! I WAS THRILLED! I was the first captain of my high school’s first swim team. My freshman year I also became the first swimmer from my school to win conference, and I was .002 second off of qualifying for state: that was my goal. When sophomore year came around I began experiencing extreme shoulder pain, but I thought nothing of it and kept doing my thing. Towards the end of the season it got so bad that when I finished a race and climbed out of the pool I would be bawling. At that point my coach made me go see a doctor. What the doctor told me changed the entire course of my high school career. I had arthritis in my shoulder due to the hyper flexibility and over use. I finished out the season, but that was my last time ever swimming competitively. When I stopped swimming I went down hill fast. I gained 30 pounds and isolated myself from everyone. However, I didn’t let this new limitation (arthritis) stop me. I then became obsessed with volleyball. I was the captain of the team my junior and senior year, and I earned All-State, All-Conference, and All-District honors. My senior year I led my team to a 3rd place state finish. Volleyball is what kept me going. It took a tole on my joints to play, but I loved it and I was damn good at it. Initially, when my shoulder troubles began, I didn’t think I would ever be able to excel at the sports that I wanted to, but I did physical therapy and worked with a trainer every day and eventually overcame the thoughts in my head. Now that I am out of the sports world and looking back at the struggles I overcame, I have to give all of the credit to my mom. She never let me down. She was willing to do whatever I needed her to do so that I would be able to play the sport I loved pain free. She strengthen my mental toughness by constantly giving me pep talks and convincing me that I was good enough, and that this wasn’t something I was going to fail at.