Jacquelin always had just one dream: to skate in the Olympics. It seems like a lifetime ago when she first strapped her fragile foot into a heavy leather boot and stood up on a piece of perfected steel, no larger than 3/8th of an inch wide. That little girl wobbled unsteadily, but eagerly, towards the unfamiliar territory, the ice rink that is now her second home.

Fast forward in time, and tears of frustration streamed down her face as she popped a lutz again. A feeling of dull, but intense, pain shot through her right ankle, making her cringe. Three weeks ago, the doctor had said that it was only tendonitis, but it should have disappeared by now. The pain still soared through her and she felt helpless. She thought that the torture was never going to end, that she would have to bear through it. Her coach’s stern eyes seemingly penetrated through her devastation and pain. “He’s watching. Just do the jump,” she kept telling herself., “You have to do the jump.” It was a cycle of failure and success, and she felt like she could not improve. Her emotionless face sheltered a hopeless little girl.

Once again, she was obligated to practice another program. Simply the thought of practicing the routine was enough to instigate a surge of dread. With her lungs on fire and her arms numb from pain, she prepared the takeoff for a double lutz. It all happened too fast: the slamming of her toe pick into the ice, the anticipated turn of her arms that threw her off balance, the crack in her ankle as a jolt of pain darted through her leg. She never left the ice, but she froze in the takeoff position, unable to move her ankle. The cause of such sudden onslaught of agony remained a mystery to Jacquelin; she only knew that being left in the dark was a cruel and unusual punishment.

It had been a fracture all along. The culprit was finally discovered, thanks to the MRI. Jacquelin was disappointed that a sport she was in love with had betrayed her, yet she secretly felt enthusiastic about her excuse to escape from torture.

Only two months later, in late October, Jacquelin found herself on the ice, alone once again. The audience hushed and chills ran down her spine as the announcer spoke with that big, booming voice, “From the Washington Figure Skating Club, please welcome Jacquelin Smith!” With no time to think, she skated out onto the frictionless ice. Her smile could have fooled anyone. Behind the sweet, innocent smile that radiated pride and joy concealed a terrified, nervous little girl on the verge of breaking down.

The music started and so did she. Desperately hiding her tremble, she just skated that same program of death that she practiced four times a day, six days a week. Those painful hours of blood, sweat, and tears, those countless minutes of fury and bitterness all must be worth something.
The first jump was only a single axel, something she had been doing since eleven years old. However, this time, her arms felt paralyzed. Half a second after take off, Jacquelin helplessly found herself sitting on the ice, but she knew she had to skate on.
By the time the program ended, she was numb to the burning of her lungs for a gasp of oxygen. It was not a perfect program, but she felt pride; simply finishing was an accomplishment. Nevertheless, a nagging seed of disappointment remained planted in her fragile heart. This was regionals, and she could qualify for junior nationals. It was supposed to be her year.
Then, the results came. A crowd as large and as dangerous as a herd of wild buffalo swallowed Jacquelin. She glanced at the results, from the bottom up, and her heart sank. She came in fifth, only .26 points behind the pewter medalist. That skater qualified for the final round and had a chance to go to nationals! And now Jacquelin did not.
Within her shell of fake pride, Jacquelin was crumbling with defeat. She thought that those days of practice, when she felt the sting of metal ripping through her vulnerable flesh, the taste of sweat upon her chapped lips, and the surge of tears, trapped devastation, flooding her shameful eyes, would bring her to nationals, but she now faced reality. Devastation hit her and suffocated her like an inescapable whirlpool, and it was enough for the final break. She sat in locker room D and whispered, “I don’t want to compete anymore.” They were the words of a quitter, someone who could never be a champion. Her coach slipped into the room and could not bear to watch her student suffer. He understood the pressure, and he knew that she was only a girl.
Jacquelin just could not take it anymore. The practices were too hard and the pain was too real. She faced the truth, that she could never go to the Olympics. Her dream was broken; it was ripped and torn apart by the competitive nature of the sport itself, into shreds of agony, shame, and grief. Skating simply was not the same anymore. The youthful, eager face that once genuinely appeared was now replaced by a tortured, tiresome one. In the past, she had endured an ankle fracture, a spinal fracture, and multiple cases of tendonitis in pursuit of her dream and now she decided that her health was in danger and her sacrifice was not worth an Olympic skate.
People told her to follow her heart, and now her heart detested the suffering that skating inflicted. She wish she could just disappear from it, run away and escape the skating world that suffocated her. She will never be good enough; there was always someone faster, someone stronger, someone better than her.
Her father had observed her gloominess that stemmed from every day's practice, and he just wanted her to be happy. His way of thinking is quite similar to that of John Lennon’s, who had once said that happiness was the key to life. In the past, he had offered on multiple occasions to switch to synchronized skating, but Jacquelin had immediately rejected such a switch. The synchro skaters are her ice rink were horrible, arrogant skaters who could barely balance. But now, she wanted to give it a try. An easy trip to nationals and a team would be nice for a change. Her competitive skating friends were like family, but they were also rivals, pushing each other down in order to climb to the top. A team would work through it together. A team.
Tryouts for the team were a breeze; Jacquelin was clearly the best skater there. Yet, she felt out of place, like something just did not belong. Her body was willing to sacrifice her sleep to wake up at 3:45 AM for practice on sundays, but her heart longed for the sport where she was untouchable. That was something that synchro could not offer. Days filled with tears followed as she realized that this was the final goodbye to competitive singles figure skating. The desperation and agony were gone, but so were the pride and joy.
She abandoned those long, harsh days of suffering in order to rediscover a love for a sport. The time, money, effort, sacrifice spent on this sport were not wasted, but rather a valuable lesson. She was that much closer to achieving a bigger goal: happiness.
It’s not true that quitting is always bad. Jacquelin reached that breaking point, where she sometimes hoped for a car accident on the way to practice, just to escape the pain of two hours. She was in misery and she was dedicating her all to a hopeless dream. It was just a dream. That little girl who was once so eager to strap herself into skates and escape from reality and enter a world of ice was now frantically searching for a way to fall in love with the beautiful sport again. She wanted to go back to those days when the ice was unbounded and when she felt invincible. And back she went.