Summertime Lows and Highs

Last summer I should have celebrated an ESPY nomination and boarded a plane with stars in my eyes and golden dreams in my heart to line up at the start line of my second Paralympic Games. I should have been spending last summer pushing my limits and celebrating achievements made along the way.

Instead, I woke up in someone else’s bed, wrapped in clothing that wasn’t mine and with no recollection of how I got there. Instead, I spent last summer riding the couch more than my bike, with dimmed lights and an uncontrollable need for quiet; three days after being named to the Team USA roster for the Tokyo Paralympic Games I fractured my skull in two places on a training group ride.

I lost days of memory – memories I much prefer to stay forgotten – going from the memory of laughing with Andrew on our way to the local Wednesday-night group ride to flashes of fluorescent lights, an elevator ride, and seeing my brother and mom as blurry fragments that made me think I had to be dreaming. It was hard to hear, and even more difficult to comprehend, that I was one of six or seven cyclists that went down in the crash on that group ride. Hard to not think how different everything could have been had we simply not been on the ride, how I’d be getting ready for team camp instead of wondering if I would ride a bike again or if I would even want to.

But while I don’t want to remember the accident, I don’t want to forget the days that followed. There were days filled with uncontrollable grief, days spent needing quiet and darkness to recharge because I did too much the day before, days where walking a block was difficult, days filled with challenging physical therapy sessions and the exponential frustration that followed, days feeling broken. But there were also days filled with walks to coffee shops in the warmth of the afternoon sun, days filled with surprises from loved ones wanting that left me feeling whole and love and not alone, and days spent on the bike that left me hopeful and strong.

I consider all of them beautiful. It’s one thing to have something out of your control stop you from chasing a dream, it’s another to think how close you come to never being able to pursue any dream. But it’s also another thing to go through the struggle and come out on the other side, a stronger, wiser, more focused, and more intuitive woman. I wouldn’t wish what happened to me to happen to anyone else. But it is because of each and every day of the last year and a half that I am the woman I am today.

And I am proud to say that because of last summer this summer was spent pouring my heart into every bike race I entered, earning more than a dozen gold medals and a world cup series overall win along with two world championship titles. Out of all the medals I have earned, I used to think my first bronze medal from the 2016 Paralympics meant the most to me. But it’s those two world championship medals I won in August that do now. My rainbows after the storm as I like to call them. Every time I look at the medals and don a rainbow jersey to go for a ride, I feel all of the emotions of every race I had this summer – from the tears of relief and joy and all of the emotions shed after my first time trial back to the tears of happiness shed while catching my breath after winning my first road time trial world title. But I also remember the pain turning from one side to the other trying to sleep, the loneliness felt watching as my friends rode away to go for a ride outside when I couldn’t, the tears shed when Andrew and I ventured outside on bikes again after coming home from the hospital, and the time it took to get through the worst of the muck. Because it took all of it to get here. It took all of it to see how much I love what I do, to find new discoveries about myself, to know that I’m only just getting started on seeing what I am truly capable of, and to see that rainbows after the storm truly can come in many forms.