Alba Valverde Delgado- English IV

LOSING DREAMS

We, as humans, lose things. It’s a rule of life, adults say. We can lose people, objects, ideas
and even dreams. I lost a dream once, and I cannot let that happen again. Everything
started when I was seven or eight years old. I was a little girl with plenty of hopes and
dreams. I used to go to a gymnastics center, because I was a gymnast. I used to practice
three or four times per week, and it was tough sometimes. Little did I know that it was
meaningless compared to what ended up getting lost in the way.

To start things off, I will have to say my passion back then was gymnastics. I was upside
down all day, and I was always spinning and flipping. I loved gymnastics, and, even though it
was hard for me to deal with this sport sometimes, it was my sport and I carried on practicing
because I had a purpose. I could spend an entire day inside the gym with my teammates
and we had lots of fun together. I knew them a lot, and they knew me too. We had spent
three years together by the time my life suddenly changed.

I remember this July day that I had gymnastics camp in the morning. We had some free time
after the apparatus and I decided to go jump on the trampoline. I loved it and it was my
favorite part of the day. I look back and I recall that I was jumping alone, and my teammates
were upstairs with her phones or something. I was perfecting my back tucks and, all of a
sudden, I heard a crack in my knee and I fell on the mattress. I couldn’t move my left leg. I
started crying and screaming and the coaches came to me and I had to hurry up to the
hospital.

When I got there, different doctors visited me and I was not having a good feeling about it. A
couple hours later, this nice doctor came to my room and told me horrible news. I was never
gonna be able to train as hard as I did before. Being a gymnast and wanting to go to a
national championship someday, those were the most horrible news to me. After some
rehabilitation months, I finally was able to go to the gym again. But nothing was the same
anymore.

After two years of fighting and trying to be at my best, I could no longer deal with it, and I
quit, due to the fact that I could not cope with the idea that I had lost my biggest aspiration at
that time. And I’m telling you, the one who is listening to my voice right now, to not quit. You
will fall, but you have to stand up being even stronger than before. And remember, you have
to live with the fact that it is not there anymore, and accept it. After some time, I was
prepared to do so, and even though I will forever regret my decision, I am grateful I was able
to do gymnastics for so long, even if it was less than wished.