February 9, 2016 was the day that changed everything for junior Jordan Boltres.

Her world suddenly came crashing down on her when she not only dislocated her arms but also ended her eleven-year career with gymnastics during her freshman year.

“Things can end so quickly, and you don’t really know what you have until you lose it,” Jordan said. “I thought that my career with gymnastics would never end, but when it did, it forced me to understand that things aren’t permanent. I surrounded myself solely with gymnastics, and the second I lost it, I was left with nothing.”

Her transition away from gymnastics was abrupt, painful, and confusing. Her life was turned upside down, and even years later, she is still reeling from the effects of giving up on her passion.

“Quitting gymnastics was easily the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do,” Jordan said. “I’d been in that sport since I was three, and it was my whole life. I had had everything planned out, and suddenly, I had to change my priorities and my goals. I went through a period of time where I thought the world was [ending] because gymnastics was gone and I had no clue what to do with my life.”

She still fondly remembers the team and the program, as it truly built her into the person that she is today. Although she couldn’t replace what she had lost two years previously, she was able to create something new when she joined FHC’s competitive cheer team.

“There are not a lot of sports like gymnastics and no teams like the one I was on for 10 years,” Jordan said. “They were really special to me. Finding another group of girls that I was equally as close to and that I got to spend every day with [through competitive cheer] really helped.”

Because she was a rookie at cheer, Jordan learned everything slowly and with some amount of difficulty. However, as the season went on, the season came to be both a learning experience and an opportunity for growth for the whole team, including Jordan.

“The cheer team was really cool because I was the only girl who had never done anything with cheer, and they still took me in,” Jordan said. “Some of the girls on the team had been cheering for years, so it was kind of intimidating. They would say easy terminology that I had no clue about. Everyone would laugh at me, but they had to learn to take it slow with me because I didn’t know a single thing about competitive cheer.”

Going into the season, Jordan had the predisposed idea that most people have about cheer. However, throughout the season, she gained a level of respect for the support because of the technicalities of it and the importance of having experience.

Quitting her long-time team and joining a new one required Jordan to have a tougher outlook and a lot of inner strength. Over the past few years, she has learned a lot about herself that has helped to push herself even farther and become who she is now.

“The thing that motivates me is that you always have room for improvement,” Jordan said. “I think that you can be happy with the person you are but still want to be better. No one’s perfect, but as long as you’re making little steps every day to become a better person– that’s winning in my book.”

However, her greatest strength of incredible self-motivation also doubles as her greatest weakness because she is constantly pushing her limits.

“I don’t think I like to admit it, but I’m pretty hard on myself,” Jordan said. “Other people tell me that I’m too hard on myself, but I think there is a balance that I’m still trying to figure out.”

For Jordan, there is always something new to strive for because nothing is perfect. However, no matter where she’s at with life, her mom is, and always has been, her solid foundation and biggest role model.

“Talking about my mom makes me cry because I love her so much,” Jordan said. “My mom didn’t grow up in that great of a family situation, but she learned how to love everyone. She loves everybody, and I know she would do anything for me. Even when things aren’t going right or she isn’t being treated right, she still pushes through and perseveres through everything.”

Jordan’s relationship with her mom means the world to her, and she knows that through thick and thin, she is her one constant.

“I would consider my mom to be more of a friend than a mom, which I don’t think a lot of people can relate to,” Jordan said. “I think that’s really valuable to have. There’s a good, healthy balance with our relationship.”

Despite gymnastics not being consistent in her life since the accident, her relationships with her teammates have remained and they are her biggest supporters.

“My friends from gymnastics like Sabrina Bowen and Ally Rypma are my biggest supporters,” Jordan said. “Even though we only see each other a couple times a year, every time we get together I know that they’ll have my back. I was with them more often than I was with my family for the first 12 years of my life, and it made us so close. They’re basically my family and they’ll always support me, no matter what happens or what I do.”

Outside of sports, Jordan has found herself through experiencing both sides of high school: the side with a vigorous academic schedule and the more laid-back side. After seeing all she could do and achieve with high school, she found that focusing on the things that are most important to her is what truly helps her grow.

“What I love about high school is that everyone changes so much over the four years, and you may not even realize it,” Jordan said. “Around junior year, you see people start falling into place with who they really are. This year, I think it’s important to [try] not get stressed about all of it. A lot of people stress themselves out thinking about college and trying to do really well on standardized tests. But if you think about it, as long you end up doing what you want to do afterwards, no one will care what your GPA was or what you scored on your SAT. Still work hard and all, but not to the point where it’s ruining you and you hate coming to school.”

High school, despite the many ups and downs, has been a learning experience for Jordan. Gymnastics especially impacted her worldview, but coming out of it, she became stronger, more intuitive, and more driven to achieve her goals.

“Finally accepting that I just needed to leave my gym was the most important decision of my life,” Jordan said. “It forced me to cope with the fact that I wasn’t going to accomplish all the things that I wanted to. I might’ve thought of myself as a failure then, but I still think about it everyday and it motivates me so much. It’s been two years, and it’s still the thing that drives me the most. I’ll always remember the time I spent with my team.”