There’s a strange thing about trying to make an Olympic team when you’re also a mom: the enormous and the completely ordinary have to exist side by side.
One minute, I’m thinking about what it actually takes to get back to the Olympics—qualification events, training, all the steps between here and there.
The next, I’m doing school drop-off.
That’s the reality of this season of my life, and Episode 3 of Unmoored probably captures that collision better than anything I could have planned.
The road back isn't one big decision
The Olympics can look like a single destination from the outside. But when you actually write down the path to get there, it becomes a series of very specific steps.
First, your country has to earn a quota spot through World Sailing qualification events. Then there are the steps that determine who ultimately gets to fill that spot.
There’s something both daunting and clarifying about seeing it on paper.
I don't get to wake up one morning and decide I'm going to another Olympics. I get to decide whether I'm willing to take the next step toward one.
And then the one after that.
A tattoo, because apparently this is where we are
This episode also includes a tattoo—which feels appropriate for Unmoored.
There is something very permanent about putting a mark on your body in the middle of a period of life that feels anything but permanent.
So much of this project has been about identity: the athlete I was, the mother I am, and the person somewhere in between who is still figuring out what she wants.
Maybe that's part of why this moment belongs here.
Not because a tattoo answers any of those questions.
But because sometimes choosing something for yourself—something that is simply yours—matters.
And then it's time for school drop-off
This may be my favorite contrast in the episode.
There is no dramatic transition between pursuing an Olympic dream and being somebody's mom.
You just do both.
You think about qualification and training and what your body needs to be capable of, and then you get in the car. You walk down the sidewalk. You do drop-off. You move through the ordinary rhythms of your family's life.
Then you go train.
In some ways, motherhood makes pursuing something this big more complicated. There are more logistics, more people to consider, and a life that doesn't stop just because I have an ambitious goal.
But it also gives the whole thing perspective.
The Olympics can feel enormous. School drop-off has a way of reminding you that it's also just one part of a much bigger life.
Getting strong enough for what's next
And then there's the work.
The gym isn't particularly romantic. There are weights to lift, repetitions to finish, and a body that has to become strong enough to do what I'm asking of it.
That's another part of being unmoored that I'm beginning to understand.
Not knowing exactly where this ends doesn't mean standing still.
I can train.
I can get stronger.
I can take the next step.
I can be a mom.
And I can see what happens.
Maybe that's what this road back looks like right now—not a dramatic declaration that I'm going to the Olympics, but a collection of very ordinary days in which I keep choosing to move toward something.
School drop-offs and tattoos.
Weights and qualification events.
Motherhood and ambition.
All of it happening at the same time.
And for now, that's enough.
Watch Episode 3 of Unmoored: “School Drop-Offs and the Road to the Olympics” on Foiling Mama.
