I was nine years old when I stopped showing up.
Gymnastics was my first love.
I took to the floor like a bird takes to the air.
Little compared to the experience of feeling my narrow legs, brown from the southern California sunshine, pounding down sprung-floor mats. I reveled in my agility at throwing myself backwards into space, performing a full, upside-down 360 degree turn and then landing on both of my feet again. It was a natural high that fed an innate yearning located somewhere deep within my young being. I soared in my nimbleness as I exuded power, strength and daring.
On our expansive, elementary school playground, I would entertain my peers with these same feats. "Do it again, Cara!" they would cheer. I rarely refused their pleas. I fashioned myself after Nadia Comeneci, the first perfect 10 Olympic gold medalist in the '76 games. As I practiced in the grass straightaway found in my parent's North County, suburban yard, I would see Nadia in my mind's eye. I would pretend I was her.
Contrary to all appearances, however, my home life - though comfortably situated within the same walls of the same house for the entire duration of my primary and secondary school career - was anything but stable. My mother's emotional health swung extremely from one side of the pendulum to the other. Some days, she was my best friend and the most hilarious of confidants. Other days, she was an evil Dr. Jekyl who flew into violent rages over the smallest of infractions, such as spilling milk on the kitchen floor.
By the time I had reached fourth grade, I had learned how to consciously manipulate a situation. I would return home from school, after being dropped off in the streets of our rolling neighborhood, knowing that my mother had not worked that day and wondering what kind of mood I would find her in. To fend off any coming attacks, I would pretend that I was feeling ill - usually with a headache - so that I could beg for her compassion and empathy as soon as I walked in the door. My attempts, even when failed, far outweighed being chased around a coffee table by a giant, mad woman wielding a leather belt, spewing venom and threatening my physical being. Pretense was the sword I used to with which to shield myself from, once again, being emotionally, verbally and/or physically abused.
One spring day, while at gymnastics practice, my innocent coach encouraged my mother to come over to our class and bear witness to my skills. Over and over again, my coach had me perform the same, basic exercises on the vault and horse. In those moments, something in me came unglued. My eyes welled up with tears as a deep sense of "not good enough" spread out from the core of my being.
After five years of nourishing a mutually reciprocal relationship with this first love of mine, I simply stopped showing up. My parents would drop me off at the local recreation center and I would pretend to walk in through the main gym doors, waiting all the while for them to turn out of the parking lot so that I could veer to the left and head up the hill, where I would spend the hour playing on the Lincoln logs in the park. This pattern persisted for a year.
In fact, as some of you may know, I spent the entire two decades that followed not showing up. The headaches became my only real ailment that, to this day, I still suffer from and the subconscious conditioning of those three little words still play out their noxious tune, "not good enough."
"You're not good enough," a popular refrain chimes.
