I didn't realize

Today I took Lily to her gym so that she could be fitted for her new team leotard. She was giddy at the mere thought of going to see everyone and being in the gym again. She actually audibly squealed about halfway there.

Just a little backstory, for those that don't know, Lily broke her arm on July 7 this year. It was a long road of healing that Lily took in stride. We are still waiting for the doctor to give her the final release to start back to her regular gymnastic routine. We see the doctor September 29th, and he told me pretty assuredly at the last appointment that he would very likely clear her at that point. In my head, I had planned to force her to sit out another few weeks after the final clear from the doctor. My thought was that she could use that time to heal (more is better in this case) and to build her muscles back up so that she could take the pressure off of her weakened bones. I wasn't really interested in giving her an option about this...well, maybe just a little.... but, I guess what I failed to take into consideration was Lily herself.

Tonight when we visited her gym my perspective changed completely. I hadn't considered a few things that are actually pretty important when making a decision like this. One, I hadn't taken the full weight of Lily's opinion into consideration. I had asked her a few times during the break if she was missing gymnastics and she would always roll her eyes at me at the sheer obviousness of her answer. YES, of COURSE she missed gymnastics and wanted to go back the day after it happened! HELLO!? It's hard being a mom with your oldest child. Obvious things sometimes take awhile to occur to you. Like the fact that a nine-year-old fourth grader really does know herself and knows what she likes. It has become less about what I think she likes and what she actually does like.

The second thing I had failed to consider: confidence. Lily has gained so much confidence from this sport. She has done things that she didn't realize she was capable of. Gymnastics has given her something that is hers and something that helps define who she is. She is so many things and she loves so many things, but she is absolutely a gymnast. I started swim team when I was 11 years old...not too much older than Lily. Within the first week of practice, I had become a swimmer. It became a part of my identity that I carry with me today. With Lily and gymnastics I had failed to realize how grown up she had become, and how important the activities that we choose to fill our time with become a part of us. Lily is an artist and a scientist, she is a sister and a daughter. But if you ask her, the first descriptive word about herself would likely be gymnast.

The third key thing that I hadn't considered when deciding to hold Lily out of the gym those few extra weeks: friends. If you know Lily at all, you know that she's not super social and really struggles to navigate the increasingly complicated rules of social engagement with her peers. She has very few friends. Today when we visited she had girls excited to see her. Girls that stopped their practice to come catch her up on everything that had been happening while she was away. It's the most animated I had seen Lily in awhile. She was genuinely thrilled to hear how they had all been doing and what they had achieved while she was away. And more importantly, they were happy to see her too. They missed her and wanted to hear about her arm and how soon she would be back.

This realization had the biggest impact on me. I'm so embarrassed that I had been seeing my daughter through such a narrow view. Lily is a whole person with many things that I don't know about her. Many parts of her are not for me to ever know. When you are growing up and being a kid, you think to yourself, I will never be a grown up like all the grown ups I see....I will remember what it is like to be a kid. I was wrong. I became a regular grown up without the perspective of being 9 and loving something so much and having it taken from me in a very traumatic way. I was so focused on healing the arm that I forgot about the part where gymnastics is feeding a part of her soul that I cannot reach. So, I guess, what I'm saying is, when the doctor gives her the go-ahead, we will be in the gym the next day. It would be selfish of me to do anything less.