The Anthem of Us All

The greatest thing that ever happened to me is that none of my dreams came true.

I failed.

This isn’t a post about how my failure turned into a new and greater success.

I failed, and I stay failed.

And that was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

I moved away from home when I was seventeen to train with a group of professional and Olympic athletes in hopes to compete professionally one day (and I hoped to make the Olympic team one day, but that bit I kept reserved mostly for myself for a long time).

In my mind’s eye, I pictured me working extraordinarily hard—never missing a training session, getting the perfect amount of sleep each night, eating the right food, and pushing my body to its limit—and then finishing the season high in the rankings of fellow junior elite triathletes, and looking forward to going pro within the next few seasons.

I imagined it’d be extremely difficult. I imagined waking up early in the morning completely exhausted from the day before. I imagined being pretty lonely. I imagined a number of other potential factors that would add to the adversity, but all in the name of me overcoming, becoming stronger because of it, and then going on to accomplish my dreams.

I thought.

That’s not how things happened.

At all.

I moved and got to work, and then mental illness struck. A building sense of depression and anxiety that had been working in me for years erupted like a rupturing dam.

For nearly a year, each and every day I woke up with feelings of hopelessness, fear, and darkness, but I had the thrill of chasing an Olympic dream in the back of my head to keep me motivated. I’d cross the finish line in the Olympic games one day, and then it’d all be worth it.

Until the season started going south.

I was not anywhere close to a top ranked junior elite triathlete. I wasn’t anywhere close to the professional mark. The prospect of ever successfully racing professionally seemed slim, and the Olympic dream seemed infinitely slimmer.

I lost hope.

With that hope lost, my hope, desire, and love for everything else went with it.

After a year and a half, and two completed seasons with this elite triathlon squad, I decided to take a break and go home to my parents for a few months in order to rest from the mental stress that had been put on me for the past year and a half.

As the next triathlon season approached, and I started to get back into shape to prepare for it, I found the anxiety and depression coming back for me. Starting as a tap on the shoulder, in a whisper they hauntingly reminded me that “we’re still here.” As the season grew closer I got sick—physically and mentally, I was sick, and I was getting sicker.

The feelings began to consume me once again. Like a vacuum, they sucked any and all hope I had accumulated over the past months with my family until once again they left me desolate of hope, love, or joy.

Out of utter despair and hopelessness, I gave up the sport. In my mind it was either time to give up the sport, or my life—biological instinct of self preservation took over.

This was the first fruits of healing.

I discovered, through the loving hands of close loved ones, that my need to succeed in triathlon was a prop that had been following me my entire life.

I had perfect grades in high school, but beyond that I only finished second in my graduating class—that ate at me like a poison for a long, long time.

Maybe it started in the third grade when the kid I idolized hated me until I got good enough at basketball to start winning games for him, and then he was my best friend. Maybe it started when I was younger. Either way, the message was the same: no one will love you unless you’re the best.

I grew up and I fed on the praise that came associated with being the best. Teachers liked me because I worked hard in their class. Peers complimented me on my GPA, and marveled at my ability to spit out math equations and physical anomalies that most people can’t pronounce. I grew older and lived for the attention that chasing an Olympic dream brought.

This made me depressed.

My body revolted, and soon its only thought (which was expressed through intense anxiety and depression) was “love me!”

Failing at triathlon—not being the best—and quitting it, turned into the best thing that has ever happened to me for two reasons.

First, it showed me that there’s something inside me worthy of being loved. That with, or without an Olympic medal, I’m nothing more or less than me, and that’s beautiful. It’s a lesson that can really only be fully understood by those who walk the terrible road of self hatred into the light of love and self acceptance.

Secondly, it showed me that other people will still love me, even if I’m not the best. In fact, it taught me what love is. Not being liked until I was good at basketball is not love. The attention I got from being good at things is not love. Love was the fact that those who really matter in my life—my family, and closest friends—still loved me, and treated me the exact same as they did before.

I failed at triathlon, and I stay failed—it didn’t lead me to some other greater success, I just simply failed. But that was perhaps the greatest gift that has come to me in my life. It was a gift that taught me what love is, and it opened me up to it for the first time in my life.