Am I Okay?

I was fearless. Until I wasn’t. I had been tumbling, flipping backwards, a springy slinky for years, until my spring sprung, and, suddenly, I was a misused toy tumbling down the steps, overpowered, out of control and thump! I crashed into the mat, crumpling like a rag doll.

Ten years of gymnastics, ten years of falling and getting back up, and today I lay on my back, breath knocked from my lungs, staring up at the bright gym lights and decided to just stay down.

“Are you okay?” Faces loomed over me, my coach, my teammates. I contemplated the question. Was I okay? Was I okay? Slowly, I pushed myself up. Nothing seemed broken. So, I guess, yes?

Still, Coach had me sit out the rest of practice. She called my mom, told her I was fine, not concussed, but I’d probably be sore for a few days. Sore. Is that what you call it when you’ve hurtled through the air and landed on your head? Yup, I was sore alright. I’d whipped-lashed myself with my own body. It would be funny, if it didn’t hurt so badly.

I recovered. Sort of …

After a few days, I could turn my neck without shooting pain racing from my shoulders to the top of my head. I even returned to practice. Not to tumbling, but to burpees and planks. To running laps and squats. Ten years of tumbling, ten years of falling and getting back up. But this time … this time, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t get back to what I had loved for so long.

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Later, my mom, hands on my shoulders, would say, “I’m proud of you. It’s okay to be afraid.” I would blink back tears, press my palms to my eyes.

“I don’t think I can do it, Mom.”

“It’s okay,” she said and pulled me into her arms. I let the tears fall. I was not okay.

Later still, Coach said, “It’s like riding a bike. You fall but you have to get back on.”

“I don’t think I can. I’m not ready.”

So Coach allowed me to remove the back tumbling pass from my routine at the next meet.

And the next meet.

And the next meet.

And the next meet.

Now.

I tell myself, This time. This time. This meet. I will be ready.

But tumbling isn’t like getting back on a horse, a bike, however the hell the saying goes. It isn’t. Not for me.

Instead, there is heat rushing through my body and pulsing in my ears. My chest is constricting, and I am choking. I’m choking! I’m going to vomit! No, I am going to die. I’m, literally, going to die if I add the back tumbling pass.

This is death.

This is fear. I don’t want this fear.

And so, I don’t do it. I don’t add the tumbling pass to my routine. I don’t back tumble. No back handsprings, no back layouts.

I just … I just need to walk away.

So, I walk away. I walk away from what I once loved because this fear is crippling me, shredding me.

And, yes, I am okay with it. I’m finally really okay.

Tamara Belko is a reader, writer and teacher. As a middle school English teacher and Power of the Pen Creative writing coach, Tamara has spent her career sharing her passion for reading, writing and poetry with her students. Tamara is the author of young adult novel Perchance to Dream.