Aw Sherry, I feel groggy and dissociated. I can’t believe I just spent a couple days typing because someone was WRONG on the internet. It might have been me. It might have been me just for being there and spending my time that way. It was so engrossing, but of course I should have recognized when I was rewalking the same rut, saying the same things louder so they would hear it this time. I see that when it develops in a friend in my presence. I should have enough self-awareness to see it in myself. But my awareness was one hundred percent focused on reason, and none of it on watching me. But wait. I don’t like when I go that far into my head.
What I like is when get back into my body. I’ve been having so much fun at powerlifting recently. My group is getting closer and closer. We work out in two pairs, and my sweet, young, pierced and tattooed partner Mike is getting so strong so fast. We spot each other, to get used to handing each other the bar, or to learn when to lift it off him when he struggles. Not too fast, our trainer says. There’s also the trust, that all I have to do is one thing, push with all my focus and body, because Mike won’t let the bar fall on me. I murmur to him as he sits into the squat, “I’ve got you." "You’re so strong.” I shout at him as he stands, “UP! UP! UP!” The whole group is sweet, keeping track of each other’s progress, complimenting any form of gain. We gather round each heavy attempt, all eyes on the lift, wishing the bar up with all of our might. The rest of the gym has noticed; people have started coming over to join when we cheer for one of us. I am very lucky. They’re funny, too, so there is a lot of cracking up at powerlifting jokes that I couldn’t make funny if I re-told them.
I’m worried about my hip flexor and my knee on the right side. I ice while I sit at my desk most days. I contemplate easing off, but can’t right now. Not before the competition coming up in February. I’m somewhat unhappy that I’m in a competition. It brings back way too much of the bad stuff, from doing sports in college. I don’t seem to have a medium setting for training; I used to live it as the dominating force in my life, the priority that dictated my life as it approached. My food, sleep, training workout, outside conditioning, all of them are dedicated to the competition, for months in advance. The other people in my group seem happy with like, training, you know, and we’ll see what happens the day of. I hear that and think, ‘that’ll never take you to nationals’. Then I remember. I’m never going to nationals again, not in this or any sport. I don’t have to be a crazed person, except that I seem to have the memories and habits of it.
My group is psyched for the fun of the competition day. They’ve never competed before, how exciting! I am appalled by competition day. Oh yeah. A day of waiting around for hours between events, watching amateurs compete and people with clipboards bustle. Warm-up, intense burst, cool down, stiffen. Wait a few hours until you do it again, feeling slightly nervous the whole time, wondering whether now is good time to eat. At least it won’t be bleachers in an ugly high school gym, like too many weekends of my life. Local events are all the same, any meet, any race, any recital. Antsyness, the smell of sweat, people acting tense, getting bossed around by officious volunteers. Bleah. I did that, for longer than it was fun. Competition day is the downside. My group is excited and I have manners, so I don’t say any of this to them.
The training is the good side, having a deadline and a reason to be intense. My group growing close and keeping it fun is even better than I would have guessed. Maybe that is because they aren’t competing to go further. Or maybe it is because in college I trained with boring people in a very formal sport. Having fun was certainly not part of the culture. Anyway, maybe this time will be different. My sister is coming, bringing friends and the perfect nephews, and my friends are coming to watch*. Maybe that will be fun, hanging out with them between events, explaining things and watching nephews play with medicine balls. Maybe I’ll feel different when I’m showing them what I can do in my new sport.
Anyway, I love the stage we’re in right now, training for a day that is far enough out that there is time to get stronger, close enough to be reason to eat right and push harder. My hour with the group is the highlight of my day. I’m also glad this will be my only competition. I have no ambitions to climb the powerlifting competition circuit. After this, the others want to do Olympic lifts and I don’t think my knees will let me join them. Besides, I have another goal for the year, and I don’t think that jumping to a squat under a bar that I’m lifting is compatible with it. No, after February my training will have to change and I’ll split from my group. I know that our ease and jokes and full hearted support isn’t the only way teams train, and I’m savoring it while it lasts.
*No. People didn’t come to my college tournaments. My family was in different cities and I couldn’t tell friends which fifteen minutes I would be competing in the ten hour day. Also, I didn’t ask them to come. Once, Chris and Anand and Dan came. I lost the fight they saw.