Baby Backflips

One of the things that has always defined her is that she chose springboard diving. Other girls chose music, soccer, basketball, volleyball, dance, singing, theatre. She chose diving and left everything else behind. 

As she grew up, her parents would tell her stories of when she was younger and she knew she had been born for that choice. She learnt to swim almost at the same time she learnt to walk. Her father had always been in love with water; he played waterpolo when he was younger and he also swam. And years later, swimming was her older sister’s thing. Her parents initiated her in swimming, but at the age of five she discovered what she really wanted to do. And so her journey began. 

But it had numerous preludes. When she was only a baby, her cousins were playing ping pong with her. She was standing on the table, giggling at the game when the ball eluded her. Louise, the cousin standing behind her, went to retrieve it. But she, trusting her cousin was there, let herself fall back. Only thing was, she wasn’t. Jenny, her other cousin, swears she saw her face change in realization. She fell backwards, did a whole flip and landed on her feet, uninjured. 

Another story her parents loved was one that involved a bridge. Once, on a family trip to Portugal, they stayed in a hotel with a pool. Over the pool was a bridge. It wasn’t really high, but she was only a three-year-old and the lifeguard went nuts when they saw her jumping off it. 

Definitely, springboard diving was the right choice for her. But, how many things in life, sometimes it just doesn’t matter, sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to. Her body turned on her very early in her career. And just like that, her choices didn’t even matter anymore because higher powers had intervened. Maybe they had other plans for her, but for the moment they had stripped her of her most defining trait. And she was left there to pick up the pieces and rebuilt herself, feeling like a piece was missing in her forever more.