OTC 39.5: Competitors and Quitters
[Private: Hackable (because she's distracted)]
A competitor will find a way to win. Competitors take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder. Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up. It's all a matter of pride. ~Nancy Lopez
...That sounds like my mother. "You don't quit, Cissie." "Don't just give up." "Do better next time."
Okay, maybe that's not exactly what the quote is saying. But it seems close enough. It feels like something Mom would have typed up and laminated and framed, somewhere we could see it all the damn time.
...I don't know why I'm getting all bitter and annoyed. Mom and I are in a good place these days. But I read that quote and I feel like I'm eight years old again, and all I want to do is go to school like everyone else, have friends, go to a birthday party, blow off my ballet lesson. And instead I'm spending an extra hour practicing my archery because when I come out of a roll, I'm not hitting the center of the target yet. Or I have to practice the piano instead of watch my favorite cartoon because my timing is off.
Which is still not what the quote is referring to, but--it's what I'm feeling.
A bad break is like... when Imp and Max had to save my ass the first time I actually went out. And Max turned Mom in to DHS. And I was taken from the only home I'd ever known and stuck in this school all by myself without any adult supervision, after years of home schooling. I lashed out. I didn't continue being Arrowette for any kind of good reason. It was revenge. It was "let me do it better without you." That wasn't a matter of pride. Well--maybe it was, in the bad way. In the one-of-the-seven-deadly-sins way. Because I was hurt and confused and upset that my mother lost custody and put me in that situation, and I thought I could hurt her by being successful without her. She'd put everything she had into me and my success. It couldn't help but hurt her.
So. Actually, reading the quote again? That's one time I did exactly what it's encouraging. Take a bad break and use it to drive you to be better. I did.
But I'm not proud of it.
I was miserable. Arrowette was all I had. No friends at school, no mother. I wasn't competing yet, I wasn't acting, I wasn't used to normal schooling and homework and actually having to dedicate time to it. I threw myself into Arrowette out of revenge and what happened? I wound up hurt. Which--ironically--wound up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. Because I went looking for Bart instead of Mom or the police (probably stupid in retrospect, but what reason did I have to trust either of them?) and I found Young Justice.
That made me better. Tim, Kon, Bart, Cassie, Greta. They made me better. The first friends I think I ever had, and a real reason to care about what I was doing as Arrowette.
So. I don't know. Maybe that was a good thing, then.
But then there's the flipside of that quote. The part about quitters.
I did quit. I gave up what was easily the best thing I had going for me in my life at the time. It wasn't just Arrowette I quit--I quit Young Justice, and risked losing my best--and only--friends, and for a while I just... existed. I threw myself into school, because that was all I had.
But... I really don't think there was another option. Maybe I should have pushed through it and tried to continue heroing. Maybe I should have taken what happened and used it as a model of what not to do. But I didn't trust myself, and I still don't trust myself. And now I'm a completely different person, and--I just can't go back to that. I can't put myself in a position where I might lost control. Not where lives are at stake.
Quitting had nothing to do with pride. If I was being proud, I would never have quit. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and... certain people didn't exactly make it easy on me. But I would have killed that man. I would have killed him, if Kon hadn't shown up. I did shoot at him. I aimed an arrow at his heart, and I let it go while he was helpless and begging for his life. I still have nightmares about it, on bad days.
If I was being proud, I would have taken the second chance Kon gave me and gone back to heroing and--what? Pretended nothing happened? Thrown myself into training and maybe work on becoming detached so that I wouldn't get too emotional again? I literally don't even know.
What I do know is that I made the right choice, for me. It was hard. I don't like thinking about it, not only because what happened to Marcy hurt so much, or because what I did still hurts. But because that whole period of time between quitting and going to the Olympics--and even some time after--was just so painful and hard. But I got through it.
So here's the thing. This quote, it's encouraging people to take "bad breaks" and use them to keep competing, to push themselves to be winners and to work harder. And says that if you don't, if you "give up", you're a quitter, and it's a bad thing. "A matter of pride." I guess I don't have much pride, then. And the time I quit was a hell of a lot harder and took a lot more resolve to follow through with than the time I let my pride push me.
I may have quit, and I may not have Arrowette or Young Justice anymore, but there are a lot of things I do have. I have a better relationship with Mom now than I ever did when Arrowette was in the picture. I have Tim. I still have Bart and Kon, and Greta and Anita, and (sometimes) Cassie. I compete. (And I'm good.) I have Roy and Lian and Dick, and the possibility of more family, if I ever want them. I have good grades, and college in the fall.
I guess--I'm happy. Happier as Cissie than I was as Arrowette, anyway, and that... has to count for something, right?
~1000 words
A competitor will find a way to win. Competitors take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder. Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up. It's all a matter of pride. ~Nancy Lopez
...That sounds like my mother. "You don't quit, Cissie." "Don't just give up." "Do better next time."
Okay, maybe that's not exactly what the quote is saying. But it seems close enough. It feels like something Mom would have typed up and laminated and framed, somewhere we could see it all the damn time.
...I don't know why I'm getting all bitter and annoyed. Mom and I are in a good place these days. But I read that quote and I feel like I'm eight years old again, and all I want to do is go to school like everyone else, have friends, go to a birthday party, blow off my ballet lesson. And instead I'm spending an extra hour practicing my archery because when I come out of a roll, I'm not hitting the center of the target yet. Or I have to practice the piano instead of watch my favorite cartoon because my timing is off.
Which is still not what the quote is referring to, but--it's what I'm feeling.
A bad break is like... when Imp and Max had to save my ass the first time I actually went out. And Max turned Mom in to DHS. And I was taken from the only home I'd ever known and stuck in this school all by myself without any adult supervision, after years of home schooling. I lashed out. I didn't continue being Arrowette for any kind of good reason. It was revenge. It was "let me do it better without you." That wasn't a matter of pride. Well--maybe it was, in the bad way. In the one-of-the-seven-deadly-sins way. Because I was hurt and confused and upset that my mother lost custody and put me in that situation, and I thought I could hurt her by being successful without her. She'd put everything she had into me and my success. It couldn't help but hurt her.
So. Actually, reading the quote again? That's one time I did exactly what it's encouraging. Take a bad break and use it to drive you to be better. I did.
But I'm not proud of it.
I was miserable. Arrowette was all I had. No friends at school, no mother. I wasn't competing yet, I wasn't acting, I wasn't used to normal schooling and homework and actually having to dedicate time to it. I threw myself into Arrowette out of revenge and what happened? I wound up hurt. Which--ironically--wound up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. Because I went looking for Bart instead of Mom or the police (probably stupid in retrospect, but what reason did I have to trust either of them?) and I found Young Justice.
That made me better. Tim, Kon, Bart, Cassie, Greta. They made me better. The first friends I think I ever had, and a real reason to care about what I was doing as Arrowette.
So. I don't know. Maybe that was a good thing, then.
But then there's the flipside of that quote. The part about quitters.
I did quit. I gave up what was easily the best thing I had going for me in my life at the time. It wasn't just Arrowette I quit--I quit Young Justice, and risked losing my best--and only--friends, and for a while I just... existed. I threw myself into school, because that was all I had.
But... I really don't think there was another option. Maybe I should have pushed through it and tried to continue heroing. Maybe I should have taken what happened and used it as a model of what not to do. But I didn't trust myself, and I still don't trust myself. And now I'm a completely different person, and--I just can't go back to that. I can't put myself in a position where I might lost control. Not where lives are at stake.
Quitting had nothing to do with pride. If I was being proud, I would never have quit. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and... certain people didn't exactly make it easy on me. But I would have killed that man. I would have killed him, if Kon hadn't shown up. I did shoot at him. I aimed an arrow at his heart, and I let it go while he was helpless and begging for his life. I still have nightmares about it, on bad days.
If I was being proud, I would have taken the second chance Kon gave me and gone back to heroing and--what? Pretended nothing happened? Thrown myself into training and maybe work on becoming detached so that I wouldn't get too emotional again? I literally don't even know.
What I do know is that I made the right choice, for me. It was hard. I don't like thinking about it, not only because what happened to Marcy hurt so much, or because what I did still hurts. But because that whole period of time between quitting and going to the Olympics--and even some time after--was just so painful and hard. But I got through it.
So here's the thing. This quote, it's encouraging people to take "bad breaks" and use them to keep competing, to push themselves to be winners and to work harder. And says that if you don't, if you "give up", you're a quitter, and it's a bad thing. "A matter of pride." I guess I don't have much pride, then. And the time I quit was a hell of a lot harder and took a lot more resolve to follow through with than the time I let my pride push me.
I may have quit, and I may not have Arrowette or Young Justice anymore, but there are a lot of things I do have. I have a better relationship with Mom now than I ever did when Arrowette was in the picture. I have Tim. I still have Bart and Kon, and Greta and Anita, and (sometimes) Cassie. I compete. (And I'm good.) I have Roy and Lian and Dick, and the possibility of more family, if I ever want them. I have good grades, and college in the fall.
I guess--I'm happy. Happier as Cissie than I was as Arrowette, anyway, and that... has to count for something, right?
~1000 words