So yesterday, for Mothers Day, since I am 3000 miles away from my mother (and family) who are in New Jersey, I did not have the opportunity to spend the day with my mama. A friend of mine, Stephanie, invited me to spend the day with her family for a bbq. Here's the story with Stephanie. I did gymnastics with her when I was growing up. I started gymnastics when I was 5 and I probably met her when I was about 7 and we did the sport together for the next 4 or so years until she moved and had to go to a different gym. After a while, she eventually moved again to California. So now since I am in California, we are about an hour away from each other. Although we haven't seen eachother / talked to eachother in about 12 years, we found eachother on facebook and rekindled our friendship since we go way back and now we are close enough in distance again.
So as I was heading the hour to Stephs house, I was slightly nervous in seeing her again. Its a bit nerve wracking not seeing/speaking to an old friend in 12 years and then all of a sudden becoming friends again and heading to their house for a Mother's Day bbq. When I got there, I had nothing to worry about. Stephanie was the same quirky, loud, outspoken and crazy person I knew when we were 8 years old doing gymnastics together, and luckily I had hardly changed either. We went through a scrap book our team made for her when she was leaving and came to find a million pictures of me and her acting stupid and being idiots. We then both admitted to being the "goofy fools on the team that everyone but us took gymnastics way too seriously."
After about 7 bottles of Champagne split between me Steph and her friend Jen, things were hilarious. Steph and I were having handstand contests in her living room (both while wearing dresses) and seeing who could still do their splits better. We were eating bacon off the counter and Steph even accidentally put bacon in her champage instead of the usual strawberry. When her boyfriend came over and started showing us pictures of his chickens (yes, his mother owns like 20 chickens), Steph couldn't help but continuously nudge me whenever she was about to die laughing which in turn caused me to turn away to try to avoid embarassing her boyfriend. It really was a great night and I'm so incredibly happy that Stephanie and I are still friends after all the time that had passed, nothing really had changed.
So we obviously were reminiscing about gymnastics a lot. Stephanie quit the sport at age 11, but I stuck with it until I was 18. Twelve years of gymnastics takes its toll on the best of us. After breaking 5 bones (left arm, right hand, right wrist, left foot, right ankle, among multiple broken fingers, toes, and noses, compressed the 3 lower plates in my back, and shin splints, and a chipped ankle bone... I could go on and on and on) and eventually having to get ankle surgery on my left ankle due to all the tendons were ripping off the bone, inturn stretching all the ligaments out and I could barely walk without crying, I am thoroughly paying for my injuries now. My joints lock. If I keep my arm for too long in one position, my elbows will lock in place and I have to "throw" them down to unlock them and crack them. My wrists also lock, so I have to pop them or else its hard to move them, my back cracks every move I make, my knees, ankles, and hips crack whenever I get up from sitting and walk around. In other words, I'm a mess. And I have gymnastics to thank for it.
Once I got into highschool, I stopped the serious gymnastics practices and went to shorter and less intense ones. My high school gymnastics team, was horrible except for about 4 of us, so us carrying the team all the time wasn't as fun as it looks, but I loved high school gymnastics, it was the best time of the year! Yes yes, I am bitching and complaining about the sport a lot (you would too if your body hurt as bad as mine does) but all in all, I miss the sport like hell. I miss being able to do things rarely anyone could even dream of doing, and I could do it with my eyes closed and in my sleep. I miss my teammates from all 3 of my teams, who I grew so close with over the years considering we would be in the gym working out 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, when we were only 8 years old. These girls are the people I grew up with, and even without seeing them in 12 years, nothing changed, because thats what teams are. They're always there for you. So thank you gymnastics, for ruining my body and putting me through hell growing up, but giving me some of the best friends I could never forget in a lifetime.
These 2 picture are of me on the Bars from my high school gymnastics team:
These 2 pictures are also from my high school gymnastics team, on Beam and Floor:
Senior Captains: Me Katie Kate and Jackie
And lastly, our top competitors my Senior Year: Jackie, Natalie, Me, Katie, Annie, Kate and Laurel
