In the past few months, I have experienced a lot of questions about who I am. I lost my belief in myself and I lost my self confidence. The worst thing I feel that I lost though was my voice. I made a terrible mistake of reading the comments on the video I did with Iris. The vast majority of the comments were kind and encouraging; however there were so many comments that were just not nice. There were some downright mean comments and these were the comments that I chose to focus on. These comments in addition to a knee injury that just was not getting any better I stopped believing that I could be strong. I managed to get into my own head and questioned if really was an athlete, if I really was the person that I believed in the past that I was. I doubted that I was brave and strong for following my dreams. I started believing that I was crazy and weak for even daring to have the dreams at all. If you are reading this and know me personally you may be thinking this does not seem like the Leona that I know. That is because this was not me. I know that I can do really great and really brave things. I know that I can take on a challenge and crush it. I have proven this to myself time and time again. I have had mean things said to me in the past, but I have never had the insane ability to go back and re-read every one of those things over and over again. It is scary putting yourself out there in a way that the internet can just attack, I do not regret doing this. I also do not regret that I let myself go down under the bridge where the trolls live. I do not regret this because I am not staying there. I am in physical therapy getting my knee injury taken care of. I am registered for a race that has meant so much to me over the course of my running career. Losing my voice and my self confidence for a short period of time is worth it if I come out from under that bridge stronger and braver than I was before. I am back.
