I used to speak fluent Flip, until the day I found myself at the center of an eruption, tongue-tied, as I fell with the ash.

Competitive cheerleading was the climb of a lifetime: every free moment I had, from the year I turned six, was focused on training for that one day I would reach the Summit. Lifting my teammates up, to either toss them fifty feet up to the beaming lights on the ceiling of the competition stage or get behind them to cheer them on as they struggled through conditioning in practice, I was the athlete everybody could count on. Early mornings and late nights, critiques and praise, mental blocks and breakthroughs: It would all be worth it when I could stand atop the mountain, with a ring on my finger, and never be fazed to look down ever again.

This dynamic slowly shifted, and showing up to practice changed from taking my teammates by the hand, collaboratively building Mount Everest from the base up, learning to climb it, and reaching its peak, to scrambling all the way down the Mauna Loa, alone, on June 1, 1950. I braced for impact, but those four hours on that fateful Saturday morning scorched any remaining joy brought out by the sport I had fallen in love with. A colossal eruption of deprecation, physical altercation, and belittlement took over my body, and I melted away, leaving nothing more than a lifetime’s worth of tears. That sweet daisy, suffocated by the molten rock, never grew again.

This was when I began to infiltrate my own mind, turning that deprecation self-imposed. Just like every afternoon, the silver garage door sat wide open, the sunlight leaking onto the worn, rug-burn inducing floor beneath me. Tip toeing on the spongy corner of the cobalt blue mat, with my toes pressed firmly on the velcro strip that held the panels together, I would mentally prepare to execute my long pass. Again. And again. And once more for good measure. Pushing off my toes, reaching to the sky, pulling my knees to my chest, sticking the landing; pass #53. Pushing off my toes, reaching to the sky, pulling my knees to my chest, rolling my ankle and landing with a bent knee; start over from pass #1. How could I leave for the day without perfecting that skill? But, as the garage door closed on the fluttering moths and flickering stars, I would walk to the car unsatisfied: my passes were never good enough, and I was never good enough; both at cheerleading and at life in general.

Coaches’ external criticisms only fueled my internal criticisms. “Your tumbling should go out with the trash!” “Why do you look like that?” “You should pick a new sport.” “What is the matter with you?” “You’re hopeless.” Regardless of how hard I worked, every day ended in a violent steam explosion; as red-hot steam billowed out of my coach’s ears, I stood with my feet grounded, as if rocks were rapidly piling on my feet and I would never be able to move again.

I grew even harder on myself, and a fear of imperfection became debilitating to the point of fearing the sport itself. I stopped throwing my back tucks and ended every pass with nothing but a rebound. Walking onstage, I forgot my entire routine and froze in the center of the floor, as my teammates performed around me. In the middle of the routine, my lungs would seize up and I would stop breathing; and how could I perform with no oxygen in my frail body? My understanding of my personal imperfections made my sport impossible, but all I could do was ask myself why I was not good enough. “I have been competing for long enough, so I have no right to be scared to throw a back tuck” quickly morphed into “If I can’t excel at a sport I have been doing for over a decade, how will I ever be capable of anything?” The erupting volcano fell inverted and I became trapped in the central vent, sinking lower and lower into the magma chamber by the day.

Cheerleading, which was once my lungs, reeled back and gave me asthma. I wanted to heal this toxic relationship I had with sport and find another gym for a second chance, but with injuries, both mental and physical, and a weak respiratory system, I feared more coaches would see me the way I was taught to view myself.

But, I knew I had to seek recovery; burns cannot be treated without the intervention of experts in the field. And what better experts to consult than the aggressor's rivals themselves?

Lingering at the shimmering gold doorway at Top Gun AllStars, all I could hear was What have I gotten myself into? I tried to ignore it, picturing myself decked out in their Swarovski-studded black and gold uniforms, training under the best athletes in the industry. But the voice of self-doubt rang louder than my biggest dreams and held me captive; What have I gotten myself into? filled my ears. I could not go in and allow the most famous cheerleaders to see how terrible of an athlete I was or let my old gym see that I was a traitor. 

Seeing through the complicated relationship I had formed with my mind and my body, I had to remind myself that I didn’t do this; I did not break down a child. They broke that loyalty, not me. It was time to get away. My knees locked, my heart raced, and my hand sizzled as I placed it on the door handle. I was going to do this. I was going to get the fresh start I deserved.

At that moment, the pain of the past and the guilt of breaking my loyalties melted off my shaking hand and evaporated into the ripe heat of the Miami sun.