In the years that formed me, I poured myself into classes, hobbies, extracurriculars I was told you’d like: Latin, Mandarin, Multivariable Calculus, Swimming, AP Physics. Until everything about me summarized to fit a single sheet of paper. I trimmed myself, and now you only want the trimmings. I could tell you about this, if you want. How much energy I spent on minimizing, how I dreamed some day they’d only see me when I wanted them to. How I thought I had to empty myself in order to be refilled. How half-white meant the mask stayed mostly on at home. How one time my favorite teacher told me I looked angry just because she couldn’t see my mouth. How it felt to have parents who compounded this, because they wanted so badly for me to make it more than they did. How they believed in this school so much they drove all the way across town twice a day so we could go there, and how they leveraged this against us any time we failed to redefine perfection. How for years, the only time I felt alive was in the air, when I was high jumping. So much so that when I saw that movie Ice Princess, all I wanted was to jump just like she ice skated, how she taught herself to silence competitions with her grace, until the way her body moved turned into something clean, objective, definite that let her earn respect and keep on going. Same way that Pelé silenced stadiums, how his soccer’s beauty made opponents cheer for him — until her skate routines had whole rinks on their feet. Until her academic mother let her choose it over Harvard. In the four months of the year the high jump mat was out, I would stay out at the track, long after practice ended, just jumping. I set up a bungee, so it didn’t fall, and ran and jumped and ran and jumped and ran and jumped, until I couldn’t get up off the mat. I can tell you how I knew with every molecule that high jump was a sport that I could only access if I kept on winning, if I stayed good enough to stay on teams. How I’d never get that access otherwise. How I drove myself to injury after injury and still I kept on jumping injured. Won injured. How I made a name for myself in New Mexico, won meet after meet, and kept on pushing because I still wasn’t good enough for Stanford. How I never made it high enough and chose to go there anyway, and how that broke my heart. How often I got asked, still, if I was admitted as an athlete, like I was a body that only happened to have a head attached to it. How I’ve never felt anything as good as flying feels, and how I know I never will again.