The Shift

Who am I when the label I’ve carried forever is gone?

All winter
it kept growing.
Not loud.
Just steady enough
to make my pulse tighten.

I look out the window.
They’re right there.
Breathing.
Waiting.
Still part of the landscape
my body knows by heart.

But the pull—
the one that used to tug at me—
is gone.

Or quieter.
Or tired.
I can’t tell which.

I’ve been “the horse girl”
since I was eight.
Maybe nine.
A label that stuck to me
faster than my own name.

There were short breaks over the years.
Weeks.
Months.
Never long enough for the identity to loosen.
Never long enough to imagine a life
without the smell of warm coats
and mud.

This time feels different.
Not dramatic.
Not tragic.
Just a slow drifting
away from who I used to be.

And now the question sits there
like an object I keep bumping into:

Who am I
when that part of me
is gone?

There’s another version of me now.
One that eats hours
and training blocks
and entire weekends
without apology.

A life built on repetition.
Intervals.
Effort measured in watts
and heart rate
instead of strides.

I use a word for myself
A working title.
A name I can borrow
until it feels like mine.

(elite-)para‑triathlete.

I still can’t say
without bracketing the elite part of it.

Some days it fits.
Some days it doesn’t.
Most days I feel like a person
caught between two identities
that were never meant to overlap.

Horse girl.
Athlete.
Before.
After.
Old spine.
New lungs.

I stand in the middle
and try to understand
how a shift can happen this quietly
and still feel like a small collision
in the chest.

I don’t know who I am
without them.

I don’t know who I am
with this instead.

I just know something is changing
and I’m not sure
what version of me
will be left
when the dust settles.