For better or worse, I’m an all-in kind of person. Always have been… Here’s the myth I didn’t realize I was carrying, though, until my physical health demanded I set it down: that being a real writer meant being relentless.

As I’ve limped and rested and brain-fogged my way toward some new version of normal again, I keep coming back to a single image. One that’s followed me through more than one collapse in my life.

The Tower.

There’s a common message they all seemed to communicate in on way or another, and it’s summed up nicely by Alysa Liu. I have a feeling many of her fellow Olympians share this perspective.