Thanks for the magic
It’s with a heavy but happy heart that I announce my retirement from competitive gymnastics. I’m learning that there is a lot of courage in knowing when it’s time to walk away and the beauty of preserving the good memories you have.
I’ve dedicated my entire life to gymnastics (I think I was doing cartwheels before I could walk, literally ask my moms) and made so many amazing memories along the way, but it’s time to say goodbye. It’s truly been an honor.
To my fans: Your support has meant everything.
To my family: Thank you for believing in me.
To Jamie: You will never be forgotten.
xxLILY
TWENTY
BETH
JUNE
Beth’s knee bounced, her gaze locked on an oblong stain stretching horizontally across the carpet that she didn’t remember being there the last time she had sat in Lenore Briggs’ office a year ago. She drummed her fingers softly against the large wrapped package she was holding as she looked around the room more. Aside from the stain, not much else had changed in the boring beige little room. The clock still ticked at an annoyingly loud volume, and the walls were still bare.
“Sorry about that. Needed to use the restroom.” Lenore smiled at her, settling herself in the tattered armchair across from Beth.
Beth set the package aside, shifting against the leather sofa. “No worries.”
“I was pleasantly surprised when you reached out to schedule. It’s been, what, a year?” Lenore raised an eyebrow as she flipped to a new page in the small leatherbound notebook she had always used during their sessions.
“I know. It wasn’t intentional on my end. Life kind of got in the way.” Beth smiled to herself, running through all the surprises life had handed her in the past year and the unexpected ways those surprises had been delivered.
“How so?” Lenore asked, the tip of her pen moving across the page.
Beth laughed, an easy grin pulling at her lips. “I don’t even really know where to start. I guess first things first. I did the homework you asked me to do. I let my body surprise itself…and to be honest, a part of me is still surprised.” She leaned forward, both feet planted on the ground, elbows on her knees. “Okay, here we go: I started dating again, had an orgasm again, made a new friend, felt like a real person again while spending time with friends, and I started painting again… Oh, and I fell in love with my ex-wife again.”
Lenore’s pen stilled enough that Beth noticed, the absence of the scratching competing with the ticking of the clock.
She couldn’t believe her eyes as she spotted the tiniest pull at the corner of Lenore’s mouth. “So, sounds like you had a pretty quiet year then?”
Beth grinned slowly. “Boring, really,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm before she burst out laughing, the motion lifting the last of any lingering weight she carried. “I’m sorry, it’s just that if you had told me a year ago thatthiswas where my life was going? I would have told you to get lost. But every day I wake up, and I can’t believe that I’m here. Which is weird, right? Because Sarah and I—we’ve done this before, but it never felt quite like this.”
“Like what?”
Beth thought for a moment, crossing one leg over the other, her flowing skirt shifting slightly. “Stable,” she said honestly.
Lenore didn’t say anything for a moment, simply letting Beth sit in that word for a little bit longer.
“Were things with Sarah not stable before?”
“No, they were. If you look up the definition of stability in the dictionary, it’s a picture of Sarah. She always provided everything we needed, but it was very…my way or no way else.But this time the stability feels like it’s coming more from the foundation becausethistimewe built it together.” Beth inhaled deeply, glancing out the window before continuing. “We were so young when we got married. We were basically kids—still in our twenties, where the biggest decisions we had to make were what bar we were going to on the weekend or where we’d be getting brunch. Our lives weren’t serious yet, and that’s not something you can really wrap your head around until after you’ve lived it, because in the moment, it all felt so serious. And then we had Lily, and things got extremely serious. Decisions needed to be made—real decisions like preschools, and college savings plans, and pediatric orthodontia, and then to nurture a marriage on top of everything… And when we had the miscarriage… We didn’t have the foundation to weather that phase of life together.”
“And what makes that feel different this time?’ Lenore asked.
Beth thought for a moment. “We’re both a lot more aware of who we are as individuals, and the ways we don’t always show up as our best selves. And we talk about it now without the shame we had when we were younger. There is space for us to learn and grow together.”
Silence stretched between them, filled by the clock ticking. Still, the sound didn’t feel as ominous to her anymore. Lenore set her pen down, her silvery gray hair piled in a bun on top of her head, looking intently at her as she asked, “And how does your relationship with Jamie fit into all of this?”
Beth closed her eyes, Jamie immediately appearing behind them. Jamie making pancakes in the kitchen, Jamie laughing so hard she nearly peed her pants, Jamie and Lily coming back from their runs together. Dimples, brown eyes, a curtain of curls—perfect moments in time forever preserved.
“I’m the version of myself I am today because I loved Jamie and Jamie loved me”—her voice cracked—“I grew because of her, and to me, growth is never something that should beregretted. Jamie will always be a special person in my life, in Lily’s life, in all the lives she touched while she was alive. But at the end of the day, Jamie would have wanted to see me be happy. It took a year, but I found my happy and it’s better than I ever could have imagined.”
