I dashed to the backyard, leaving my glasses behind, and went right into the cartwheel hand after hand. Then came the indescribable feeling of flipping straight back into a standing position, only a couple of feet from where I began. 

Perhaps a simple gymnastics move, but it’s so different from the feeling of sitting at my desk all day. Instead of being confined to my uncomfortable chair, my hands were pressing off of the damp grass, and my muscles were stretching to keep my momentum going. 

As a little kid I always dreamed of doing gymnastics and being able to twist and move like Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas. As I grew older and my family of five grew busier, I left those ideas in the past. My only reminder was the Scholastics gymnastics poster hanging in my room with its encouraging message to “Dream, Believe, Achieve.” 

I’ve been walking right past it for years now, and until recently I hadn’t done anything related to gymnastics. Then I decided to read Olympic medalist Laurie Hernandez’s memoir “I Got This,” where she describes her own journey with gymnastics, making it to the Olympics in Rio, Brazil. 

All of a sudden I was drawn back into a whirl of excitement and spent hours watching iconic gymnasts on YouTube. I found myself fondly recalling the gymnastics summer camps I attended in elementary school where I would practice on the beam, the trampolines and the floor, while occasionally getting foam from the foam pit in my eye. 

Laurie spoke to me in her memoir even though I was not part of the aspirational Olympic gymnast audience. While I have no expectation of becoming a competitive gymnast, I asked myself what was stopping me from practicing on my own like I used to. 

I say learning gymnastics was a dream of mine, but why did that have to mean professional classes or gyms? After all, I perfected my one-handed cartwheel during recess in the park as a kid without outside coaching. 

After some quick internet searching I decided to learn how to do an aerial, a sort of “no-handed” cartwheel. But first, I had to see if my body remembered any of the movements I used to show off at family gatherings. 

That was four weeks ago. Now, while I am a ways away from being able to complete an aerial, I have surprised myself with the amount of positive energy I get every time I do even one cartwheel in my yard. After stretching almost daily for the last month, I can now almost do splits, something I initially didn’t even consider attempting to learn.

For years, I had let my dream of gymnastics fade in my memory, but by opening that box within me I rekindled my passion for what is now another simple hobby. 

Simple, but motivating. Sometimes we find ourselves shying away from pursuing anything casually, but with gymnastics, it’s perfect for me. 

As it is getting dark earlier, I push myself to take advantage of the hour after my classes end to go out and flip myself through the air. I have dreamed for long enough, and as my poster says, the next steps are to believe and then achieve. 

It will be a while until I accomplish my goal of doing an aerial, but I’ll enjoy myself along the way, knowing that my happiness from gymnastics rests on my shoulders – and cartwheels.