What I'm going to say is kind of overplayed but it's basically true...it's all about wanting what you've got.
I'm very grateful to have had gymnastics in my life. I kept going through my senior year and for various reasons it didn't really work out to continue at the NCAA level. I really don't like competing personally and was very stressed out from about age 12 onwards (basically when I started competing...started a little late)...although I love gymnastics and progressed fast and performed relatively well in practice, I'm not much of a competitor. Until a certain level I did relatively well in competitions simply because the skills came pretty easily. Through level 8 I could absorb the few mistakes I'd make. Then when the routines got more complicated, so to speak, it just became a lot harder for me, and it seemed like any possible mistake, I would make it in a meet, whether I'd ever had that problem before in practice or not.
I enjoy working out and coaching now, a lot. I thought I would be disappointed in myself for not reaching that "gold standard" but at some point I realized I couldn't make myself something I'm not. If it hadn't happened by then, nothing was going to click and make me a different gymnast. It was time to let that chapter of my life go. Far from being disappointed, I was almost immediately relieved in a lot of ways. There's nothing inherently better about one level of gymnastics than another. It's all about the individual situation.
The problem with gymnastics is that it's going to end somewhere for everyone. It doesn't matter where, but what I am going to say, for almost everyone, you will somehow be disappointed at least briefly. I have heard the SAME STORY from girls who quit all along the ways, from level 6 to international elite. There's always something that will feel raw and left undone and you will never feel like you're finished. But you can leave and go on and start another chapter and enjoy gymnastics in other ways. I feel like I know some people who feel stuck on a certain path and what they're trying to get isn't there...you have to accept there's no perfect finishing place and like everything in life, it's a huge mistake to think "if I just had this, I would be happy." You will most likely still be unhappy, but just with whatever it is you didn't have before. This is hard to come to terms with in your early adult life as reality hits. Honestly, lots of things are possible and life can really be whatever you want to make it...but some things aren't possible. And some things aren't right or realistic for everyone.
