If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.
Picking up from yesterday –
Anyway. The point is, I wonder how much Tonya Harding had to deal with that. And I wonder how many people came out of the movie asking questions like, “HOW could she go back to him after he shot at her?!” I mean, I felt it in my soul. The movie all made total and perfect sense to me. I identified. I cried. I got it. And I wonder for someone who hasn’t had the last year and a half of trauma therapy I had – especially in this, the year of 2017 – if it feels as so super real and relatable and heart-wrenching and such…
So, she was in this abusive relationship. And abuse was all she knew. And no one was there to help her. Even when the cops pulled her husband over for something else, and there was alcohol and guns in the car and she was bleeding right in front of them, they didn’t talk to her. They didn’t ask if she was okay. She had nobody.
And I most certainly did not realize she’s one of the best figure skaters of all time. I guess I just kind of assumed that if she had make some incident happen to get her competition out of the way, then she must not be good. But she’s one of only a tiny number women to have ever been able to perform the triple axel. Ever.
I think she was the first American woman to do in a competition. She would’ve been the first person to do it at the Olympics, but alas, her home life was out of control during 1992, and her skating was suffering, and she couldn’t pull it out, sadly. And I know lots of people can do amazing things when their home life is a mess. And she often did too! But in 1992, alas, she just didn’t.
Anyway, the triple axel. Man, there was a part in the movie… the movie sort of has these little asides from the characters in the present day, like they’re giving interviews and stuff. And Tonya’s character gets choked up when she talks about the triple axel and says something like, “I’m sorry… Nobody ever asks me about this anymore.”
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!