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Because if love used to mean never letting me give up what does it mean now— now that Mami has forgotten who I used to be?
just a small hurdle I’ll tell the sports interviewers when years from now they make a documentary about my life.
It’s weird, really, how my return is more about angles measurements X-rays and not how my body feels inside.
She tells me that’s enough of that reminds me that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it
He has no idea what it feels like to swim against the current, to go from being special to being nothing, to have to work so hard to get back what you lost that you could practically suffocate in the boiling waves of your own memories and thoughts.
it’s hard not to let that ball of sad turn into a ball of anger
Daydreams Are Everything Because in my room alone in my head, I can be whatever Valentina I want to be. I can be a lioness roaring as I score the winning touch. I can be a hummingbird dodging lunges with the kind of speed and accuracy that shouldn’t exist. In my room, alone in my head, I can pretend there isn’t a glittery pink cane in my closet and I can be Valentina the winner the champion the medalist the hero I can be the real true me.
How do you explain pain to someone when they can’t see it when they can’t feel it when a scale from one to ten feels useless but metaphors and verbs like stabbing hammering digging scraping feel like words I could shout till I run out of steam but Papi and Mami and Manu would never actually understand?
How can I push through and be strong how can I be all or nothing how can I get rid of all this pain all this weakness if Siri tells me something I don’t want to hear?
Yes, therapy will help you fence better. Yes, it will make you stronger. But there’s nothing wrong with body parts that work differently or are disabled, with legs that need assistive devices like canes or extra rest, and the sooner you start seeing your leg as a part of you and not a limb you need to fix, the better you will start to feel.”
Do you ever worry that you might not reach your dreams?
that even if my leg doesn’t go back to the way it was even if all my plans fail I’m still not disabled enough to compete in a wheelchair even if the idea of that sometimes late at night when everything hurts and I have to pick up my leg with my hands in order to lift it off the bed feels like maybe it would be the most fair.
“And what if I never go back to who I was?” Amanda is quiet for a beat before saying that that sounds really hard. How adults sometimes act like we’re too young to have dreams, like we shouldn’t get attached, even though some of us already have life plans.
And I want to tell him how scared I am— how the word disabled feels like a mouthful of undercooked rice stuck to my tongue how I don’t even know the word in Spanish for what is happening to my leg my insides my heart.
When I saw Dr. Claudia yesterday, she told me that maybe I should start thinking of everyone I know as either disabled or pre-disabled, because every single person will eventually need physical therapy or other types of help at some point in their lives. That if we live long enough, we all need support whether because we get diagnosed with something or we hurt ourselves (like me) or we simply age.
but I guess I’m just having one of those days where I’m sad. Really really sad. And I’m so used to being angry Valentina, the Valentina who’s always ready to argue to be the best to fight until the bitter end that this cloud of sadness feels like losing, like if pushing through pain is making weakness leave my body then being this sad is just letting it back in.
But it’s a little scary too, finding something you like. Is it worth it to dance if there are no competitions? Is it worth it to do something if you’re not the best? Can I be like Manu and Amanda? Someone who does things just for fun?
“Amanda. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to compete again.”
I don’t know anything. Things are so hard. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I can do. “And I lost it. I yelled at Myrka accused her and left. “And this is just not me, Manu. It’s not me.” I take a deep breath. “I need help. I need Mami. I need Papi. I need you.”
that even though I know it’s okay to be the way I am that even though I think disabled is the word I maybe want to use for everything happening in my leg inside my heart I still feel like I don’t know who this version of Valentina is yet I still feel really really sad.
“¿Te duela la pierna hoy?” Mami asks when she sees me come down the stairs. And I pause— my usual No, it doesn’t hurt about to roll off my tongue— but if I want her to change I need to change too and I’m trying to be more honest about my pain.
“My dad used to tell me things aren’t about success or failure but about honest effort, and I think it’s time I start applying that to everyone in this house. Because, Vale, nobody has put in more effort than you. You make me proud to be your papi every single day. Qué suerte la mia de tener una hijita como tú.”
Valentina the non-champ? I don’t know. She’s starting to sound kind of exciting to me.
It’s hard, isn’t it? When the things you thought made you you suddenly change? We are more than just our talents. We are more than just our successes. And when we make mistakes—because everyone does—we are so much more than those, too.
