Bad Things Will Happen by Genevieve
If there is one very important thing that I’ve learned in my 11 years on this planet, it’s that bad things will happen. Not bad things might happen, but bad things will happen. I know this from experience. Life can’t happen without these ups and downs, so even though it’s hard, we need to accept that no one will have a perfect life. I have found however, that if you are able to cope with the hard things, life will be a lot better. I’ve also found that if you try to work around the bad parts, and still have fun, they won’t be so bad.
Speedboat Struggles
It was a warm summer day in mid-june, and one of my gymnastics teammates, Che, had invited me to spend the day at the Horsetooth Reservoir. Her family had rented out a small one-room building that was next to the reservoir. It had some comfy places to sit in it as well as access to a dock where you could go kayaking or boating.
The best part though, was that Che’s dad had a speedboat, and that he was going to take me, Che, a girl named Penelope, Che’s babysitter, and Penelope’s dad on the speedboat to ride it around the reservoir. We all got on, and got ready for a speedy trip through the water. The building Che’s parents had rented was at the far south end of the lake, and the boat sped towards the dam at the north end.
I stood at the front of the boat, the cool wind blowing on my face. It felt almost like I was on the wing of an airplane. The water was like wispy clouds that the boat flew through, leaving it distorted in a beautiful way. I felt like our boat was unstoppable, and I felt the urge to scream something about it. “Woo hoo! This is amazi-”, my voice was cut off by a loud sound that was like the exhaust of the formula one cars that I see on TV. Then, what sounded like a cat growling when you’ve held it for too long. I tried to ignore it, but a sudden lurch caught me off guard and made me tumble to the back of the boat. “EE!” I shrieked as I hit the cold water on the deck. “That is not normal,” I said, my voice wavering.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” Che’s dad mumbled as he examined the controls. The water level was rising quickly, so we all thought we would have to abandon the ship and swim for land. Penelope asked Che’s dad if we had to swim to land. She shouldn’t’ve asked though, because Che’s dad was already frustrated.
“Oh, I don’t know!” he yelled, “At this point, we are in dangerous waters for swimmers, but we have no way to get out of this boat!” Red-faced Penelope turned and sobbed into her dad. Tears came to my eyes too, and everyone else seemed to feel the same way. Well- except for Che. While I stood blinking to drive away the tears and hiding my face the best that I could, Che still jumped around and made jokes like nothing was wrong.
How Does she do that? I wondered, how is she not scared? The water level rose, and with it my stress. I think that Che could tell that I was worried.
“Hey, hey Gigi,” she said to me, with one of her most mischievous grins on her face. I turned my head to her, and she started to sing. The song was about- well, I don’t really know. Something about a guy named Joe who works in a button factory and turns wheels all day. The thing about this song though, is that you have to stand on one foot for part of it. So there Che was, at the middle of the bobbing boat. Using her perfect gymnast balance to stay standing. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked, “Come on!”
I burst out laughing, and forgot myself that the boat was stuck. I started to sing along with her. I jumped into the middle and shifted my weight to my left foot. Che and I sang, and it made everything feel normal again. However, I think that we were a little too caught up in our singing though, because we both lost our balance when a wave made by a working speedboat hit us and jostled our boat.
“Hey! Stop that!” Che’s dad yelled as we flipped onto the floor. I screeched again as I hit the cold water. Che and I rolled around on the floor as we laughed our heads off, but Che’s dad was not amused. “I am trying to work, stop singing!”
Che and I basically couldn’t sing at this point, our voices were hoarse from laughing and we were both gasping for air. We kept on laughing though, and Che’s babysitter let out a couple of giggles too.
“Please just be quiet!” Che’s dad yelled, and this time, it really looked like he had had enough.
We both stopped. I sighed and stared off of the boat. Then, I heard a whisper. “We’re making a purple stew, wip wip, wip wip,” she sang.
I smiled and replied, “We’re making a purple stew, shooby-dooby-doo,” We laughed and finished the song, getting louder.
Penelope started singing along too, and Che’s babysitter. We sang almost the whole time, slowly bobbing in the water. We were on that boat for two and a half hours before Che’s dad got it started again, but it barely felt like any time at all! When we made it back, Che’s dad was not very happy, but Che and I were all smiles. I realized that day how important it is to look on the bright side, and if you do, the worst times can turn into some of the best!
Sometimes though, you can’t make a bad thing into a good thing. You just have to accept that something bad happened and try to not sulk about it.
Bars
As you probably know, I am a gymnast. As you might also know, gymnastics has four events, bars, floor, vault, and beam. I was fine at every event but bars. I hated bars, more than anything in the world, and I was awful at it. It didn’t help that Che, my best friend on the team, was the best at everything, especially bars. It also didn’t help that I had no reason to be mad at her for it. Che was a great friend, and even though she was a million times better than me at every event, she never gloated or rubbed anything in my face. You know that feeling when you’re a little jealous of someone, but you still want them to be in the wrong. I’m not going to lie, I felt that way. I mean, the best thing about Che was how she was such a great friend, but on bars, I really needed a reason to be angry. I did have a little bit of reason to be mad though, another girl on my team (I won’t say her name) always said that I was terrible. Che always made her back off though, especially when we were on bars. Che was all-around great, she stuck up for me and encouraged me, but not in a fake way. She always encouraged me when I did my best, but when I did my worst, she didn’t say things like, “all that matters is you tried” or “you’re still a winner!” When I did something bad, she laughed just like anyone else would. I liked this, it may seem weird, but to me, that makes the encouragement seem less forced. Through hard work and help from coaches and Che, I improved. Despite discouraging scores, I got better and better, until I was ready to show my skills at the state meet.
It was the day of the big meet and it was six am. I wasn’t feeling so sharp. I sat on my bed holding my stomach and groaning in pain. “I can keep it down just for this meet. I can keep it down, keep it down, keep it down,” but I couldn't. I threw up all over my bedspread, and this sent me into tears. I needed to go to this meet, I needed to get a good score on bars. I just had to! My parents heard my crying and came into my room. My mom and I both started panicking, but my dad calmed us down and we talked about the situation. Believe it or not, but we decided to just suck it up and compete. We got there quickly, and were a little early. So I went to where the rest of my team was sitting.
“Good luck Gigi,” Che said, she wasn’t competing today, because she was in a much higher session than I was, as I had expected. She was a supportive friend though, and still came to watch my meet.
“Thanks,” I said, almost in a whisper. I was scared, but I had to be fierce. Warm up started quickly, and I was starting to think that my stomach ache had just been food poisoning, because it was almost gone. I competed floor first, with no problem. Then, came bars. The warm up was good, and I was pulling off some of my best moves. I was pretty confident that I was going to get a good score. Pride comes before a fall though, and things were about to get bad.
I stepped up to compete, and I was feeling good. The judge gave the signal, I saluted, and began my routine. I jumped to the bar and felt my stomach lurch. It took all the muscles in my body to keep from throwing up. I didn’t throw up, but because I didn’t, there were no muscles left in my body to make my kip. My feet struck the floor. I was confused, and I had been so caught up in my stomach that I didn’t even realize that I didn’t make it. After I figured out what was going on, I was upset. I tried to keep myself from crying as I did another swing and got up. My squat on went fine, but I missed my kip on the high bar too. I could contain my emotions no longer. Hanging on the bar, struggling to do a pullover and get myself up, tears began to roll down my cheeks. I cried hard, basically ruining the rest of my routine. I completed it, but I didn’t take any mind to form during the rest, I was too overcome with emotions to think about anything else. I dismounted my routine, finished, and sat on the floor. I covered my eyes with my hands and sobbed hard into them. My coaches came over to me and hugged me, trying to get me to feel better. I saw the scoreboard, which made me cry even harder. I got a five-point-four out of ten, my worst score ever. I usually at least made somewhere in the sevens, and I felt sure that I was going to get at least an eight this time.
I was so disappointed in myself, and I cried the hardest I think I’ve ever cried in my life. All my teammates and coaches were trying to help me feel better. My coach Kianah sat down on my right side. “Hey, don’t worry about the score, fine?” Kianah said, “Your warm up was great, and even though you messed up a bit on the real routine, you should be very proud of the other routines you did. I know you’ve been working really hard, and that it’s pretty disappointing, but you’re still a great gymnast, and you ought to be proud.” I listened to her, and miraculously, I felt a lot better! I realized that even though something bad happened, I can’t beat myself up about it too much. I did a great warm up, and I had worked really hard to improve. I stopped sulking and feeling sorry for myself, I knew that I had to finish out the meet on a good note. I dried my eyes and watched the rest of my teammates compete, and I didn’t even feel jealous of their scores. I realized that I might never be as good as them at bars, but I was fine with that. The real reason people do sports is to build character, and learn how to persevere when things are rough. I learned that day that there is no way to avoid Murphy’s Law, and that life isn’t perfect. All you can do is make the best decisions you can, persevere, and try your hardest.
Through both of these tough experiences, I learned that bad things will happen, and you have to make the best of them, and accept that it is not the end of the world if something doesn’t go the way you want it too.
