Greetings friends and happy August I'm Lavonne Martin Florio,
the host of the podcast series.
Taking a deep breath
life requires moments of reflections that are often accompanied by taking a deep.
I like to refer to these moments as aha moments, which are a sudden
realization, inspiration, insight recognition, or comprehension that
catalyzes a more profound sense of self and can be a springboard for growth.
So welcome to my vision of sharing stories of transitions and
triumphs today's episode continues.
My thoughts from episode one.
Which was when it's over this episode, celebrates a momentous
feat in my life and athletic career mentioned in the previous podcast
of my journey through the Olympics.
But today is a special day.
Today is my Olympic versus.
30 years ago, I crossed the finish line in one of the craziest Olympic
finals in the women's 100 meter.
All my life.
I have dreamed about that moment that I would stand on the podium in a packed
stadium while awaiting an Olympic metal being placed around my neck.
Every, since I watched my athletic idle Benita Fitzgerald at the
1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles.
Cross the finish line in first place.
Cementing her place in our athletic society, in our world as the first
African American gold medalist in the 100 hurdles, I wanted that same feeling that
day finally arrived on August 6th, 1990.
I walked out in my USA metal ceremony outfit after successfully crossing
the finish line in the silver metal position a few months earlier, I wasn't
even predicted that I was going to make the 92 Olympic team let alone
metal at those Barcelona Olympics.
But guess what?
I did.
I defied the odds.
I surprised myself and the world.
I will forever be etched in history as the silver medalists in these Olympic games.
What do I mean by that?
So we all know in life and in particular in athletics, things can
change from one day to the next.
You can be a champion on one day and the next day you may
not even make it to the finals.
On that particular day of August 6th, 1992, I walked away as the
second best hurdler in the world.
And I was thrilled.
I had accomplished my goal.
I had given myself a victory, my community, a victory my community
in Dayton, Ohio was a statics.
My family, my coaches, everyone that had been associated with me, even Benita
Fitzgerald, who was waiting for me before I went out to get my medal, to give me the
biggest hug and tell me how proud she was.
Okay.
But to my surprise, I had a hollow feeling that accompany my most incredible
track and field accomplishments.
That journey was so exhilarating, but in the end, and yes,
I knew the end was coming.
I felt hot.
And so, as I mentioned before, there were years that I spent in my heart,
not outwardly, but in my heart, trying to replicate that Olympic feeling
instead of acknowledging when it's over.
And so I can recognize in me that transitions are always hard.
Like I said earlier change is inevitable, but for some reason I tend to linger
in the comfortable spaces of my leg.
And so these past years in particular, these past four years, I have been
working on myself and it has caused me to do some serious reflections.
So while I have been pondering, I can trace some of these feelings of insecurity
to two distinct childhood memory.
And I want to share those with you because to me , it connects as to why
I struggle a lot of times with change.
So the first one is happened to me.
When I was in second grade, I went to a Catholic school.
I grew up Catholic and I attended this school from second to fourth grade.
I love my school.
I love my friends.
I love my team.
I felt safe in this space because it was also the church that I attended.
In second grade I had this great Nigerian teacher who was very strict, but she
was loving and halfway through that school year, she had recommended to
my parents that I should be promoted the next year to fourth grade.
In other words, she felt that I needed to skip the third grade and go to the fourth.
Part of the reason why is that?
I had a huge vocabulary.
I had a out of this world reading appetite.
My comprehension level was off the charts for a second grader.
And Mrs.
Ooma felt that I needed to skip third grade and go on to fourth grade.
Well, I wasn't included in the discussion at all my parents, black
parents in the seventies, they didn't ask their kids about what they
thought, like what happens today.
I came from that mantra, children should be seen and not heard.
And so that decision was made for me to move to fourth grade
and my comfort level was spooked.
Now let me add this little caveat.
As I transitioned to fourth grade, I still had to go back and take
third grade math because my math skills were on par at grade level.
So being with fourth graders all day who were nine, almost 10
years old, I'm an eight year old.
And then having to come back and take the math class with my regular class, that
I would have the regular grade that I would have been in that was challenging.
So fourth grade I've found to be challenging, not the academics
part, but the social and emotional adjustments were a serious struggle.
I always felt like I was behind the eight ball.
I was never comfortable.
I never felt accepted by the kids in the class.
And why would I be?
I was eight.
They were nine going onto.
My confidence was shaken.
I never made the adjustment insecurity prevail throughout my academic years
and even all the way through college.
Think about it.
I'm always socially and emotionally a year behind any promotion that
I was in academically, I never shared those feelings with them.
I never made the core relation until recently as I've
started on my healing journey.
It's like Maya Angelou said at 50, I began to know who I was and it was
like waking up to myself and I agree.
My next experience was when I was in fifth grade, before fifth grade,
I grew up in a very typical street in the inner city of Dayton, Ohio.
Growing up.
I had no idea of the happenings in my neighborhood.
I had no idea that it was crime written.
I had no idea there was a nefarious dealings that were going on.
All I knew was that I felt safe, I loved my childhood friends and I had
a childlike freedom on Ardmore street.
I remember very vividly.
That we would ride our bikes, my brother and I unbeknownst to us, our mother was
watching us, but we felt like we were free to the end of the street, into
this big lot that we thought was huge.
And we would just ride our bikes in a literal circle and just
laugh and felt free and had fun.
When I think about it today, that lot wasn't that big.
But to us, it was huge.
It was free.
One of my other best memories about living on that street was that I could
walk to my maternal grandparents home.
That was a few blocks away.
I was very close to my maternal side of of our family.
And so that predictable life made me feel safe.
Well, one day my parents who were hard working black parents
wanted to provide a live.
For us that included good schools, a safer neighborhood
and acquired her side of life.
So they moved us out of the city to the suburbs.
We moved into a plan community that provided the relief that my parents
sought for our family of four.
my little sister would be more than about five years later.
So she wasn't included in.
If I'm honest, it's one of the earliest memories I have in my
life of being anxious about change, starting a new school, acquiring new
friends, having my first exposure to white people was different than
any experience I have ever had.
And if you're African-American you understand what I mean?
When I say your first exposures to dealing with Caucasian.
I found out later in life that some of our neighbors were unhappy that a black
family was even living next door to them.
I realized now that I didn't know this fact then, but I felt something
was different in this new community than that all black neighborhood
that I had grew up in, in the city, unbeknownst to my parents, I struggled.
I struggled greatly with this change.
I never shared it, or even knew that I still carried this memory in
my heart to this day, but I always had the surety of track and field.
It was my happy place.
It was where I felt free, different, except it, every time I rent X,
especially when I won, I was important.
I was a winner.
I can transform into my version of a superwoman on the.
And that's why transitioning from the end of my career to
regular life was difficult.
I was right back where I started anxious about the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
Well, a couple of weeks ago I had a little bit of an anxious thought when
I was watching the world championships of track and field take place on U S
soil for the first time ever in Eugene.
I competed in a world championships in 1987 in Rome, Italy.
And that was my first and only world championships.
And so I know how much this meant to have these games here in the
U S the first world championships was 1983 in Helsinki, Finland and
to have in 2022, the first world championships on us soil was exhibiting.
Well, I often get asked or I got asked within those couple of weeks.
Why wasn't I there?
Yeah, I decided not to go to the world championships for a few reasons.
Number one, I'm always respectful of my husband.
Who's a coach and not wanting to invade his space while he's working.
That's one.
I definitely want to be respectful.
Number two, I've had been to Eugene, Oregon a couple of times this year,
and I really wasn't looking forward to going back to Eugene and in
particular I don't deal really well.
Crowds.
And so I wasn't interested in that, but if I'm being really honest
with myself, I have worked really hard to step away and separate.
Lubana the track athlete from Lavanya, the person.
And I did not want to put myself back into that environment of, of the feelings.
And I'm trying to describe what those feelings are like, that feelings.
I guess the feelings of replicating that moment, those moments that I had
as an athlete, I've worked really hard to kind of like step away from that,
but I want to admit something to you.
As I saw pictures, as I saw videos, as I talked to a few people who
were at the competition, I had that same lingering feeling in my head.
About I wasn't there.
I was missing out.
I wasn't a part of it.
That same feelings that I was healing or being healed from, started to come back.
I made the decision to go off to Cancun and watch the track
meets while looking at the ocean, because that's what I love to do.
As a matter of fact, my spouse, my partner, my husband, he said
to me, go do what makes you happy?
And that's something that made me happy while on that trip, I went and visited
a Mayan temple and I am a history buff.
And so it was on my bucket list to go to . Well, I learned something
that shit's needs are I learned a lot, but one thing that was an inspiration
for me, apart from the fact that the Mayans are a phenomenal people.
What they were able to do, how they were able to create it,
create their society was amazing.
The stories that we hear about them are, are so skewed from the
colonizers perception, but they are a wonderful marvelous people, but here's
one thing that I learned from the Mayans when they built their cities.
And in particular, this temple that I was telling you about, they built
their cities on top of each other.
So if you were to dig deep inside this temple, you will see
that there is a smaller temple, another temple on top of that.
And then the large temple that we see when we recognize that it's one
of the new seven wonders of the.
They build upon what is underneath or what was the laid foundation.
And that's what I realized that I have these layers of myself.
That's built upon some of these foundations.
And in particular, I'm not saying that it's a positive thing either.
I'm saying these feelings that I have of change.
And I might bury one and build on top of that and bury that
and build on top of that.
And I never really deal with the deep downness of why I struggle with change.
And when it's over, new beginnings are scary and they're
terrifying, but it's never over.
It just changes.
And so after I pondered how I was feeling about watching the track meet and what I
felt like I was missing out, I recognized I wasn't missing out on anything.
I recognize that the joys in my life is not what I may feel like it's
changed or what I may be losing.
It's what I cling to.
Buddha said that you only lose what you clean too.
That's the challenge, wanting life to stay static and status quo.
That's the challenge not embracing the change that is to come.
The change that will happen.
The change that is inevitable, that's the beauty of life.
So when I look at some of these young people, and when I talked to some
of these young people, I recognize that part of my role is to encourage
part of my role is to be a beacon.
Part of my role is to.
Take what I know and not force it, but just take what I know and
be there as as a healing balm, because we all go through changes.
As I mentioned the last time we all go through changes, whether
it's our children growing up and leaving the home, that's a change.
Whether it's the change in a new job, whether it's moving, whether
it's a loss of a friendship or the loss of a loved one, these are all
changes that we have to recognize happens in our lives, but it's okay.
So as I think back to my childhood and I think back to how I did not handle and you
know, what thought of why I didn't handle it well is because I didn't tell any.
So the next guest that I will have on the podcast is a friend that had
made herself available to me during a really difficult timeframe in my life.
And I recognize that it's through transparency and it's through
being able to, to open up it's through recognizing chain.
And it's through embracing it is where the healing comes.
And so I'm excited to introduce you to her in the next podcast.
And as I stated I'm forever grateful to my spouse who encourages me to
pursue those things that make me happy.
And he encourages that and supports that.
And I encourage and support that for him.
And for that I'm eternally grateful.
So as I end the podcast for today, I hope this encourages
you to continue to journey on.
, whatever is set before you,