Throughout my entire life my parents would always stress about wanting me to find something I’m passionate about. Luckily, when I was only 5 years old, the thing I was most passionate about in my life fell straight into my lap. As a kid my parents put my sister my brother and I all in gymnastics classes. When I was age five, I got asked to join something called the tumbling and trampoline team. I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time, but quickly I fell in love and continued to do it for 12 years. Over the course of these twelve years I learned more life lessons than a child learns in their lifetime. I was blessed with friendship, mentorship, and a loving drive for competition and hard work. When I was 12 I was faced with a career ending knee problem. I was forced to decide if it was my time to stop doing the thing I loved most in the world, or to undergo knee surgery. To me, the choice was so easy. I was not yet willing to give up what I loved doing and a little bump in the road was not going to stop me. After a successful surgery and 3 months’ remission, I was back in the gym and continued for another 5 years. In the end, with school piling up I was forced to stop competing at age 17. AS my mother said, school always comes first. Looking back, the amount of things I was able to take away from a 12 year gymnastics career provided me with determination, hard work, perseverance, and most importantly the drive to find my next passion and the next thing that will fuel my love for the world.