I’ve been asked, more times than I can count, why I stopped skating. It’s a fair question. You can’t just go from both skating, coaching and basically living on the ice, to saying “Just kidding, I’m moving to Hawaii!” without someone questioning, “What the hell is going on here?”. Every time the question comes up, I never know how to answer it without feeling some shame or grappling fear. So, I just say the easy thing: “Personal issues,” or “It was time,” or jokingly, “I was tired of being cold.” Avoiding the truth, the vulnerability, is easy. I can easily talk about my experience to someone close to me and completely lay it out there on the table without hesitating.

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