The mom turns her face down as she talks. Her words slip and trip like children in skates across ice. We sit together two-thousand miles apart. Before us the blue landscape of the gym with it's square peaks and valleys. The triangles of the bars rising like ghost sails from metal ships. The tumble track pinging like a dock in winter.
As she speaks I can see her words, still wobbling on their blades, falling to the floor through the thinness of the ice she is creating. She doesn't believe what she is saying anymore than I do. But she keeps talking because she wants to believe.
I shouldn't be offended by her but I am. It is often forgotten that beneath all I do for them and their children in my position that I am a mom too. My daughter is out there swimming in that cold, open ocean.
Dear Mother Next To Me:
For years we have come this way. Long before you and long after. We wade in. We have been where you are- staring out at the waves. Beyond the breakers of money and time is the wide open blue water of what is possible for them.
You afford what you want. You build what you believe in. You erode what you hate.
I am not going to argue that this sport is for everyone. I am not going to say a parent throwing in the towel for their child is wrong to do so. Many have come this way. Many have come back in. Eventually they all come ashore. Where they make their landfall is determined by how far and long they swim.
What I would want to argue is for those of us already out in the waves we deserve some respect from those parents still in the shallows. Don't act as if we don't know. Don't pretend we are any different than you.
I get the shock of seeing the size of it for the first time. The ocean of competitive gymnastics is huge. I get the gathering of lifejackets. I can even forgive someone's need for throwing up shade.
What I don't get is the 2 years of built-up to that moment. The beach lined with parents in folding chairs. They judge and coach and gossip. They fork out money for private lessons and swear they aren't pushing they child towards the open sea. But they are.
Their words create eddies against their actions. Leaving the rest of us to swim through the undercurrent they spill.
Dear Mother Next To Me:
Now you are here. You are up to your neck in the cold water and the waves are coming.
If you never wanted this for your child, if you are like me, this moment will be easy. I let my child swim into the breakers because it was what I knew she wanted.
I saw the same horizon you saw. I saw the waves threatening the sky and I thought, how do I do this for her?
We tread water to watch them swim. We throw the dinner dishes into the sea. We pack bags, big and little and everything between. We cut holes in the nets the world sets up to stop them. We follow the moods of the moon.
If you have come out this way even the tiniest bit for yourself you will all have a much harder time. You will hang on through the waves, and they will roll you. Your wieght will weigh your child down. She will have to work harder to stay afloat just because of you.
If this has been about you. The vastness of the water ahead will insult you. You will say, it's not worth it. And you will be right. It's not worth it
for you.
Dear Mother Next To Me:
This sport is not played on the beach it is out there in that ocean. You cannot learn to sail while sitting in the tidal pools. You cannot swim in the sand.
What I love and hate about this sport are the same thing; that it is not easy. It's not even possible and yet it happens. I hate/love the travel and the life lessons. I hate/love the commitment, the judging, the bling, and the bruises. I hate watching my child fall. I love watching her get up again. I hate watching her struggle through fear and doubt. I love seeing her overcome and succeed.
I used to wish I never took her here. Wished and wondered what if she had never seen this ocean. I don't wonder about that any more, at least not in the same way. Today I stand in the water, just about knee deep. The waves crest and break in sets by the time they reach me I am mostly ready.
The child I let slip out into that blue ocean is becoming so strong, so powerful, and so deep. I could not have given this to her by keeping her. I gave this to her by letting go.
Dear Mothers Next To Me:
Your words can ice over a little pond but you can't freeze the sea.
