Newton native Gracie Gold received a standing ovation from the crowd inside the Greensboro Coliseum after her free skate Friday night. It was her first nationals performance in three years after time away from the sport to treat depression, anxiety and an eating disorder, NBC Sports reports.
Gracie Gold’s comeback should inspire us all
by village14 | Jan 27, 2020 | Newton people | 5 comments
How wonderful! I love her story on why she has the moth tattoo (go to NBC link) – ‘It’s because they always find the light.’
Thanks Meredith: We get a lot of complaints about V14 being too negative, too friendly to a certain perspective, etc. But generally threads like these barely get a mention from the folks who like to do all the complaining.
Congratulations to Gracie. Some things aren’t nearly as good now as they were when I grew up here in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but one thing that has greatly improved (at least in newton) is the way most of us try and relate to and encourage people who seem “different than the norm”, whatever the norm or normal is supposed to be. We’ve made real if incomplete progress with opening the door to inclusive discussions of depression, anxiety, sexual identity, various forms of addiction,and other topics that were taboo or hidden from public view and discussion not that many years back. I’ve suffered from a few serious learning disabilities and I don’t think I would have talked publicly about it except for the courage and pioneering work of so many others in coming forward about their problems. I speak regularly about my own difficulties to students in our elementary and middle schools under the auspices of the “Understanding Our Differences” program. Kids have so many new resources to confront difficulties like I had and the beautiful thing is that they can actually laugh at some of the obstacles they face. We didn’t do much of that back in the “good old days”.
Inspiring story — and emotionally evocative!
Great figure skater!! Only second in my book to the wonderful Tonya Harding.