I worked also, doing things such as our paper route and, later on, waitressing.
My life has been a whirlwind since the '94 Olympics.
People would ask me why I was doing what I was doing - but I always told them that I just loved to skate. There was no other explanation.
Falling down became second nature and it really didn't bother me.
It wasn't always easy getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to the rink. Sometimes I wanted to just go back to sleep.
My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.
