I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from the School of Arts & Sciences from The Ohio State University on August 31, 2000. The week before that, I had packed all of my belongings up, and moved to Pittsburgh.
My senior year at Ohio State was a lot of me being torn in different directions. I wanted to complete work on my Journalism degree, and at the same time I was training and starting to work as a professional wrestler. I was busting my ass during the week working a third-shift job loading trucks at UPS, so that I could spend my weekends out of town training or working shows. I was spending a lot of time in Pittsburgh, so upon graduation it actually made a bit of sense to move up there.
The guy that took me under his wing and helped break me into the business the right way was Anthony "Kingdom" James. Kingdom was originally trained and started working as a professional wrestler up north in his native land of Canada, but I had met him when he was living in Pittsburgh. He was wrestling regularly there, as well as in my hometown of Cincinnati. Kingdom had talked to the head trainer at the Pittsburgh Wrestling Academy, a guy known as Mad Mike, and it was worked out so that I was able to come up to the Wrestleplex on the weekends and workout with Mike and his students - even if I wasn't working for the company. I started traveling up to Pittsburgh on Friday afternoons, and I would work out with Chris Hero and one of his students, Cuefa the Flyin' Hawaiian. Then I would hang out and watch the matches at the Wrestleplex that night if there was a card. On Saturdays I would workout with the guys training with Mad Mike, like Sterling James Keenan, Orion, and Scottie Gash. If there was a small show in the area I might try to get booked on the card, or I would maybe hang out again and check out the show at the Wrestleplex. Sometimes guys like Brandon K and Mr. Bigg would workout on Sundays, so I might squeeze a workout in before heading back to Columbus.
I started dating a girl in the business that was going to school in the Pittsburgh area, and she ended up needing a roommate right at the same time I was graduating from Ohio State. So, with me spending so much time in Pittsburgh and not having any kind of job lined up after graduation, I decided to take her up on the offer and moved in with her.
Bad move.
After about six weeks living in Pittsburgh I didn't have any kind of solid full-time employment, I was dating a girl that was blatantly cheating on me with any guy in wrestling trunks, and I didn't have two nickles to rub together. Oh, and suddenly there was a halt in wrestling activity in Pittsburgh.
The promoter that was running shows out of the Wrestleplex was a guy named Jim Miller. The Wrestleplex was nothing more than an empty storefront at a rundown mall in suburban Pittsburgh. Miller had converted the shop to a wrestling arena once his candy and sports collectibles business failed at that location. During the time-span that I was commuting to Pittsburgh from Columbus, Miller lost his lease at the mall, and had moved the promotion's operations to a nearby Turner's Club. It was the proverbial beer hall. After running events at the hall for a couple of months the Turner's decided they no longer wanted to work with Miller, and the promotion stopped running shows. One of the wrestlers was also a local radio personality, and he ended up finding a concert hall to run shows at. Because of his radio connections a television deal ended up being on the table for Miller's promotion, but the two had a conflict. Virtually the entire locker room ended up defecting to a new promotion backed by the radio guy, with the promise of this television deal paying them enough to quit their jobs and being full-blown wrestling superstars. Not only was Miller was not part of this deal anymore, but he was also involved in a serious auto accident, and was putting very little effort into promoting shows and saving his business.
So here I was, a rookie trying to follow his dream of being a big-time pro wrestler, and I was already sucked into a tough situation because of politics in the business. I tried to stay out of everything, and I just focused on picking up bookings. I was starting to pick up work regularly in West Virginia, and I was able to work some small-time events the Pittsburgh area, but I didn't have anywhere to train, so I wasn't going to keep improving. I was beginning to think that moving to Pittsburgh was a bad idea. This is a thought that I would revisit a lot over the next six years.
I had actually found a decent day-job to make some of my ends come close to meeting, but I was still kind of screwed on a place to live. There was no way that I was going to be able to find a place of my own. At this point I really had two options: find someone looking for a roommate, or move back home with my folks and regroup. I really felt like my first foray into the real world couldn't end in failure, and having to trek three-hundred miles back to where I grew up seemed like failure to me.
Unlike most of the other guys I had worked with in Pittsburgh, I didn't jump over to Miller's new rival because of the enticement of being on television. I was a greenhorn with a bad spot who was just lucky to be on the card; I knew I was only jerking the curtain because the promotion was running weekly and needed enhancement talent. The guy that was booking the new promotion was the guy that was booking Miller's promotion, and when he sent me the line-up for the first show and I was listed on the card without ever having been asked if I wanted the booking, I took it as a bad sign. I had no loyalty to the booker, and if he was wanting me to jump ship just to be a jobber, why should I jump? I wasn't making any money wrestling in Pittsburgh at all, and I didn't really deserve to. I was a guy in desperate need of ring time to work on my craft, both in training and in front of real live crowds. If I wasn't going to get that in Pittsburgh, why stay?
I contacted Miller and laid out what was going on - I was grateful for the opportunity to improve myself there in Pittsburgh, but if he was not going to have a new facility or a place to work, I wasn't sure if I was going to stay in Pittsburgh. Miller responded by inviting me to a meeting that he was having with his top lieutenants about future plans and for what he had in the works. Since I didn't have much else going on, I said "what the hell", and went to the get-together.
At the meeting I had a lot of smoke blown up my ass, and I was told that I was the future of the company, and that once everything was up and running again, I was going to have a big part of the book, and maybe even be the champion. Considering that I was green as grass, I knew that if this was even remotely true it was stupid from a business point-of-view. However, Miller did put a pretty decent financial offer on the table.
Miller had a rental property that was sitting empty because the last couple tenants had pretty much torn the place up and not paid their rent on time, if at all. Miller offered me the property rent-free, as long as I maintained the property and paid the utilities. We worked out an agreement on how much this was worth, and put it down in a lease agreement. I think the agreement was that this was worth $400 a month, and that if I brought in any roommates, they would split utilities with me, and kick $100 to him for rent.
At this point, I decided to stay in Pittsburgh, because I was suddenly doing something that 99% of the guys that enter this business never do; I was putting a roof over my head thanks to wrestling.
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Professional vs. Hobbyist
I got hooked on professional wrestling when I was a kid. I'm not sure when exactly it was, but I remember I was watching Saturday Night World Championship Wrestling on WTBS, and I saw Tully Blanchard squash some preliminary guy, then walk over to David Crockett and Tony Schivone at ringside to talk shit about something. I immediately wanted to see more. Somewhere along the line I decided that I wanted to be a professional wrestler. Sure, I also wanted to play catcher for the Cincinnati Reds, or perhaps get bit by a radioactive spider and gain superpowers. Hey, I was a kid.
I was fortunate that Cincinnati seemed to get a wider variety of wrestling programming than many places. I was able to watch the Four Horsemen try to run Dusty Rhodes and Magnum TA out of town, Randy Savage destroy the throat of Ricky Steamboat, and Col. DeBeers piledrive Jimmy Snuka on the concrete. I spent many a youthful Saturday flipping back and forth between the different wrestling shows, and the different baseball games on television. Saturday morning was for watching superhero cartoons, but the afternoons were for watching sports.
At some point I got away from wrestling; I just didn't follow it as much as I did when I was a kid. It probably coincided with the different wrestling programs vanishing (as the territories went out of business), and the most accessible stuff being the World Wrestling Federation's product. I was a big fan of guys like Arn Anderson, so I wasn't as keen about watching guys like Doink.
When I got to college, I discovered the wondrous world of independent wrestling, due to a local Columbus promotion having some semblance of a television show on public access. It was bush-league, but entertaining enough, and it made me start watching wrestling regularly again - WCW Monday Nitro! Monday Night Wars! Then I discovered ECW, and it really reminded me a lot of what I used to watch when I was a kid. So, once again I was hooked.
Eventually I made my way down to the local Columbus promotion, the IWA, and after checking out a few shows live, I decided I really wanted to try it myself. I hung out after a few shows and talked to some guys, and even ran into a couple guys on campus. Before I knew it, I was in the ring - not knowing a damn thing about what the hell was going on - but working matches. I was looking for training and an opportunity to work anytime I got the chance. I wanted to be a wrestler, and here I was in college, where I am supposed to be preparing for what I want to do with the rest of my life. Yet I am out busting my ass to be a professional wrestler.
When I was breaking into the business, the prominent thought in my mind was not about getting paid. Maybe I wanted to be a star, or a main event guy - who gets into wrestling and doesn't fantasize about headlining a Wrestlemania or Starrcade? Who doesn't think about wrestling in the main event down at the building you used to watch your heroes wrestle?
It might sound dumb, but when I was breaking into the business, there were three companies out there doing good business, just in the United States. It was the midst of the wrestling boom, and all of the promotions were heavily going after new talent to fill out all the television time they had. I never really had a strict desire to work for one particular company over another, because at that point I knew guys getting dark matches and tryouts with the big boys. I just focused on learning my craft, and getting better, waiting for my time to come, and someone would give me a chance to prove myself.
Many of those opportunities dried up when WCW and ECW went out of business, which left the WWE as the only game left in town. I came to a realization at which a lot of other guys never would; The guys that used to have good paying jobs with the major promotions were going to turn up in the independent promotions, and swallow up all the good paydays. This helped me set a clear goal for myself as a professional: Make a living from wrestling.
I never wanted to treat the business as a hobby. I left behind my friends and family and moved two states away to pursue wrestling, not to play wrestler. I always realized that there is a limited amount of time to pursue any athletic endeavor, because everyone will get old and be betrayed by their body at some point. I never wanted to grow old and regret not taking the shot at wrestling when I was young. I made up my mind that I would work whatever jobs that paid the bills, while I would put all of my effort into making a living wrestling. Wrestling came first - before family, friends, or money.
Straight out of wrestling school, no wrestler is able to demand enough money to live off of. At some point you have to "pay your dues". Paying those dues means sacrifice. I was always willing to make those sacrifices to be a professional wrestler, while others turned away and decided that rather than make a sacrifice, they would just do it for fun - a hobby. I saw paying my dues as an investment of my time and youth into a future goal.
I also figured out pretty quickly that there were hundreds and hundreds of talented wrestlers out there, and that every single one of them thought that they were going to be headlining Wrestlemania. There were plenty of wrestlers out there now that could draw money or have great matches on television, but they are not what the WWE is looking for. Unfortunately, there are also not very many other places out there worth a damn to build an exciting and viable product to showcase these guys. So again, a lot of guys have to make a choice: work their ass off to become a very good wrestler, work their ass off to get signed by the WWE, or treat it like a hobby. Or quit wrestling.
Being a good wrestler, and being a WWE prospect are not necessarily the same thing. The things that will get a wrestler booked on the independent circuit are not the same things that the WWE is looking for. The WWE is looking for someone with a marketable look, with a raw skill set that they can develop. A vast majority of the time, the WWE process is more of a casting call than it is signing the top wrestling talent. For every Daniel Bryan there is a Miz. For every CM Punk there is a Mason Ryan. There is no "amateur draft", where the top prospects and most highly skilled wrestlers are recruited into the WWE with a pile of money available after years of hard work honing your skills. The WWE doesn't necessarily pick the best talent; they pick the individuals that they think they can market the best. .
From the start I tried to get as much ring time as possible, so that I could sharpen and polish my in-ring skills. I tried to work on my skills as a wrestler and storyteller (and after some time, as a matchmaker and a promoter as well). I knew that with my body type and skill set, if I ever wanted to support myself from wrestling, I had to make myself a commodity that promoters would be willing to pay top dollar for.
Getting paid on the indy circuit is mostly about respect and covering expenses. In a lot of ways, the paydays that are being handed out at most promotions are not enough to change your status in life, at least not without having a lot more of those types of bookings. A lot more. When you first start out, there are tons of expenses that you have to just eat as an initial investment in your profession. You have to just have to chalk it up to paying your dues while you learn the craft. You have to pay someone to train you, you have to buy ring gear, you have to have dependable transportation, money for traveling expenses, and more. When you get out of wrestling school, no promoter is going to give you any money right off the bat, because you haven't earned it. Wrestling isn't the NBA or the NFL where you get paid for your talent or potential - in wrestling you make money by proving that you are a draw. Since no one is really a draw, you must turn yourself into a commodity that promoters feel that they should pay good money to feature on their cards. A commodity that ticket buying fans will pay to see.
My goal was always to fill my schedule up and to find as many consistent bookings where I received a regular payoff, that way I could use those dates and payoffs as a negotiating point. I tried to use my schedule as leverage against promoters. When you start filling up your schedule and you have promoters wanting to book you, the bargaining position is better when it comes to negotiating a price. When a promoter wanted to book me and my calender was full for two or three months out, I have leverage when it comes to my asking price, and for what the promoter wants to do with me. It also allows me to go back to promoters I am already working with and negotiate for more money .
When you can get a promoter three hours away to pay you $50 a pop twice a month, the local guy that wants to give you $5 and a hotdog has to step his game up to keep you around. Once you have promoters contacting you to do business with them, you are able to negotiate paydays, to be treated with respect. When someone promises you $50, gives you $5 and says that if you don't like it you don't have to work there, that is disrespect for the time and effort you put in to your craft. Let promoters treat the hobbyists like that.
I made a lot of choices in my career, some good, others bad. But they were all choices that were what I thought were best for me professionally, rather than as a hobbyist. Sometimes I had to drive three hours to wrestle a match and break even on expenses, just to show the local promoter that is underpaying me that I had the ability to replace his bookings. Sometimes this led to better paydays, sometimes this led to an eventual parting of the ways. But at no point in my career did I say "screw this, I am not wrestling for anyone that doesn't pay me like I am a star." That would result in me losing the ability to practice my craft. A craft that I sacrificed family, friends, and money for. Despite the fact that I was doing everything I could to make a living off of wrestling, why would I ever do that?
And that is why the question about why I wrestled to begin with is important. I didn't dream of drawing big houses and making good payoffs from promoters when I was a kid sitting on the couch watching Arn Anderson spinebuster fools. Just like when I dreamed of being a baseball player, I never dreamed of being a ballplayer so that I could get a fat million dollar contract. I wanted to grow up and play a game. When I got into wrestling, I realized that I was doing something that I had always dreamed of, and I wanted to do whatever I could to perpetuate that dream. At some point though, you have to look at things as an adult and be able to walk the fine line between destroying your own body for pennies, and not doing what you have always dreamed of doing. That is the difference between being a professional wrestler, and a hobbyist.
They say that if you are good at something, that you should never do it for free. This is true. But unless you have evidence that you are good at something, why would anyone ever pay for you to do what you are good at?
I was fortunate that Cincinnati seemed to get a wider variety of wrestling programming than many places. I was able to watch the Four Horsemen try to run Dusty Rhodes and Magnum TA out of town, Randy Savage destroy the throat of Ricky Steamboat, and Col. DeBeers piledrive Jimmy Snuka on the concrete. I spent many a youthful Saturday flipping back and forth between the different wrestling shows, and the different baseball games on television. Saturday morning was for watching superhero cartoons, but the afternoons were for watching sports.
At some point I got away from wrestling; I just didn't follow it as much as I did when I was a kid. It probably coincided with the different wrestling programs vanishing (as the territories went out of business), and the most accessible stuff being the World Wrestling Federation's product. I was a big fan of guys like Arn Anderson, so I wasn't as keen about watching guys like Doink.
When I got to college, I discovered the wondrous world of independent wrestling, due to a local Columbus promotion having some semblance of a television show on public access. It was bush-league, but entertaining enough, and it made me start watching wrestling regularly again - WCW Monday Nitro! Monday Night Wars! Then I discovered ECW, and it really reminded me a lot of what I used to watch when I was a kid. So, once again I was hooked.
Eventually I made my way down to the local Columbus promotion, the IWA, and after checking out a few shows live, I decided I really wanted to try it myself. I hung out after a few shows and talked to some guys, and even ran into a couple guys on campus. Before I knew it, I was in the ring - not knowing a damn thing about what the hell was going on - but working matches. I was looking for training and an opportunity to work anytime I got the chance. I wanted to be a wrestler, and here I was in college, where I am supposed to be preparing for what I want to do with the rest of my life. Yet I am out busting my ass to be a professional wrestler.
When I was breaking into the business, the prominent thought in my mind was not about getting paid. Maybe I wanted to be a star, or a main event guy - who gets into wrestling and doesn't fantasize about headlining a Wrestlemania or Starrcade? Who doesn't think about wrestling in the main event down at the building you used to watch your heroes wrestle?
It might sound dumb, but when I was breaking into the business, there were three companies out there doing good business, just in the United States. It was the midst of the wrestling boom, and all of the promotions were heavily going after new talent to fill out all the television time they had. I never really had a strict desire to work for one particular company over another, because at that point I knew guys getting dark matches and tryouts with the big boys. I just focused on learning my craft, and getting better, waiting for my time to come, and someone would give me a chance to prove myself.
Many of those opportunities dried up when WCW and ECW went out of business, which left the WWE as the only game left in town. I came to a realization at which a lot of other guys never would; The guys that used to have good paying jobs with the major promotions were going to turn up in the independent promotions, and swallow up all the good paydays. This helped me set a clear goal for myself as a professional: Make a living from wrestling.
I never wanted to treat the business as a hobby. I left behind my friends and family and moved two states away to pursue wrestling, not to play wrestler. I always realized that there is a limited amount of time to pursue any athletic endeavor, because everyone will get old and be betrayed by their body at some point. I never wanted to grow old and regret not taking the shot at wrestling when I was young. I made up my mind that I would work whatever jobs that paid the bills, while I would put all of my effort into making a living wrestling. Wrestling came first - before family, friends, or money.
Straight out of wrestling school, no wrestler is able to demand enough money to live off of. At some point you have to "pay your dues". Paying those dues means sacrifice. I was always willing to make those sacrifices to be a professional wrestler, while others turned away and decided that rather than make a sacrifice, they would just do it for fun - a hobby. I saw paying my dues as an investment of my time and youth into a future goal.
I also figured out pretty quickly that there were hundreds and hundreds of talented wrestlers out there, and that every single one of them thought that they were going to be headlining Wrestlemania. There were plenty of wrestlers out there now that could draw money or have great matches on television, but they are not what the WWE is looking for. Unfortunately, there are also not very many other places out there worth a damn to build an exciting and viable product to showcase these guys. So again, a lot of guys have to make a choice: work their ass off to become a very good wrestler, work their ass off to get signed by the WWE, or treat it like a hobby. Or quit wrestling.
Being a good wrestler, and being a WWE prospect are not necessarily the same thing. The things that will get a wrestler booked on the independent circuit are not the same things that the WWE is looking for. The WWE is looking for someone with a marketable look, with a raw skill set that they can develop. A vast majority of the time, the WWE process is more of a casting call than it is signing the top wrestling talent. For every Daniel Bryan there is a Miz. For every CM Punk there is a Mason Ryan. There is no "amateur draft", where the top prospects and most highly skilled wrestlers are recruited into the WWE with a pile of money available after years of hard work honing your skills. The WWE doesn't necessarily pick the best talent; they pick the individuals that they think they can market the best. .
From the start I tried to get as much ring time as possible, so that I could sharpen and polish my in-ring skills. I tried to work on my skills as a wrestler and storyteller (and after some time, as a matchmaker and a promoter as well). I knew that with my body type and skill set, if I ever wanted to support myself from wrestling, I had to make myself a commodity that promoters would be willing to pay top dollar for.
Getting paid on the indy circuit is mostly about respect and covering expenses. In a lot of ways, the paydays that are being handed out at most promotions are not enough to change your status in life, at least not without having a lot more of those types of bookings. A lot more. When you first start out, there are tons of expenses that you have to just eat as an initial investment in your profession. You have to just have to chalk it up to paying your dues while you learn the craft. You have to pay someone to train you, you have to buy ring gear, you have to have dependable transportation, money for traveling expenses, and more. When you get out of wrestling school, no promoter is going to give you any money right off the bat, because you haven't earned it. Wrestling isn't the NBA or the NFL where you get paid for your talent or potential - in wrestling you make money by proving that you are a draw. Since no one is really a draw, you must turn yourself into a commodity that promoters feel that they should pay good money to feature on their cards. A commodity that ticket buying fans will pay to see.
My goal was always to fill my schedule up and to find as many consistent bookings where I received a regular payoff, that way I could use those dates and payoffs as a negotiating point. I tried to use my schedule as leverage against promoters. When you start filling up your schedule and you have promoters wanting to book you, the bargaining position is better when it comes to negotiating a price. When a promoter wanted to book me and my calender was full for two or three months out, I have leverage when it comes to my asking price, and for what the promoter wants to do with me. It also allows me to go back to promoters I am already working with and negotiate for more money .
When you can get a promoter three hours away to pay you $50 a pop twice a month, the local guy that wants to give you $5 and a hotdog has to step his game up to keep you around. Once you have promoters contacting you to do business with them, you are able to negotiate paydays, to be treated with respect. When someone promises you $50, gives you $5 and says that if you don't like it you don't have to work there, that is disrespect for the time and effort you put in to your craft. Let promoters treat the hobbyists like that.
I made a lot of choices in my career, some good, others bad. But they were all choices that were what I thought were best for me professionally, rather than as a hobbyist. Sometimes I had to drive three hours to wrestle a match and break even on expenses, just to show the local promoter that is underpaying me that I had the ability to replace his bookings. Sometimes this led to better paydays, sometimes this led to an eventual parting of the ways. But at no point in my career did I say "screw this, I am not wrestling for anyone that doesn't pay me like I am a star." That would result in me losing the ability to practice my craft. A craft that I sacrificed family, friends, and money for. Despite the fact that I was doing everything I could to make a living off of wrestling, why would I ever do that?
And that is why the question about why I wrestled to begin with is important. I didn't dream of drawing big houses and making good payoffs from promoters when I was a kid sitting on the couch watching Arn Anderson spinebuster fools. Just like when I dreamed of being a baseball player, I never dreamed of being a ballplayer so that I could get a fat million dollar contract. I wanted to grow up and play a game. When I got into wrestling, I realized that I was doing something that I had always dreamed of, and I wanted to do whatever I could to perpetuate that dream. At some point though, you have to look at things as an adult and be able to walk the fine line between destroying your own body for pennies, and not doing what you have always dreamed of doing. That is the difference between being a professional wrestler, and a hobbyist.
They say that if you are good at something, that you should never do it for free. This is true. But unless you have evidence that you are good at something, why would anyone ever pay for you to do what you are good at?
Monday, April 11, 2011
A Commitment
So, I have had a pretty rough beginning of 2011, wrestling wise. I have had some pretty decent matches and stuff, but for some reason, I have had a ton of health issues, and have been fighting off some nagging injuries at the same time. I know that i can do better.
Concurrently, I have been having a lot of positives in my personal life, and I have had to do a lot of adjusting in my life around that. The biggest drag in my life is my job that pays the bills - but who doesn't have that problem, right? I have a pretty physical job however, and trying to manage my injuries well enough to go grind it out at work everyday, train, and prepare to wrestle on the weekends has been kicking my ass.
I have not been in the physical shape that I desire to be in. Back in 2000, I suffered an injury trying to train in a style that I was not comfortable with. I weighed 185lbs, and I made a commitment to be a heavyweight. I have had a lot of success with that over the past ten years.
Now, I am unable to train and workout the way that I want. My body is also changing due to my age. I have been trying to adapt my style and my workouts to it, but with little success, because I haven't gone all in. When I was 185lbs, I dedicated myself to eating 3lbs of chicken and a cup of rice daily. After about six months, I was around 215, and I was on my way.
Now, at 33, I need to commit myself the same way to a different training regimen. I cannot be the strongest guy in the ring anymore - my body just will not let me. So, I need to stop training and eating that way. I need to be quicker, yet strong. I need to improve my already strong mat skills, and I need to be lighter.
I made a goal earlier this year to be weighing in at 225lbs. I want to get to that goal by my RCW/BDW shows on May 7th/8th. I am giving myself four weeks to safely and permanently drop twenty pounds.
Intensive Interval training and high rep workouts that are safer on my joints are a must. I gotta eat right, sweat it out harder in the gym, and keep focused on what I am doing. I have to allow my body to adapt, and not panic and go back to old habits. And above all, I gotta take care of my body.
Concurrently, I have been having a lot of positives in my personal life, and I have had to do a lot of adjusting in my life around that. The biggest drag in my life is my job that pays the bills - but who doesn't have that problem, right? I have a pretty physical job however, and trying to manage my injuries well enough to go grind it out at work everyday, train, and prepare to wrestle on the weekends has been kicking my ass.
I have not been in the physical shape that I desire to be in. Back in 2000, I suffered an injury trying to train in a style that I was not comfortable with. I weighed 185lbs, and I made a commitment to be a heavyweight. I have had a lot of success with that over the past ten years.
Now, I am unable to train and workout the way that I want. My body is also changing due to my age. I have been trying to adapt my style and my workouts to it, but with little success, because I haven't gone all in. When I was 185lbs, I dedicated myself to eating 3lbs of chicken and a cup of rice daily. After about six months, I was around 215, and I was on my way.
Now, at 33, I need to commit myself the same way to a different training regimen. I cannot be the strongest guy in the ring anymore - my body just will not let me. So, I need to stop training and eating that way. I need to be quicker, yet strong. I need to improve my already strong mat skills, and I need to be lighter.
I made a goal earlier this year to be weighing in at 225lbs. I want to get to that goal by my RCW/BDW shows on May 7th/8th. I am giving myself four weeks to safely and permanently drop twenty pounds.
Intensive Interval training and high rep workouts that are safer on my joints are a must. I gotta eat right, sweat it out harder in the gym, and keep focused on what I am doing. I have to allow my body to adapt, and not panic and go back to old habits. And above all, I gotta take care of my body.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
That "Dying" Feeling.
Everyone gets sick. Not really a big deal, right?
A few years back, I had a major bout with MRSA, supposedly after being bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider. If you are unfamiliar, MRSA is a type of staph infection, which can be deadly. I was bitten in the arm, and ended up having surgery on my arm, to cut out dead tissue. Not fun.
Well, after that all healed up, I was pretty good, with just a small scar on my forearm. However, MRSA kinda stays in your system for years, and once you have it, it is really easy to get it again after that. This past January, I noticed a small bump on my body which I just assumed to be an ingrown hair or a pimple. It turns out I was having another bout with MRSA.
You see, staph infections are very easy to get when you are a wrestler. When people sweat and bleed all over a canvas, it is easy for bacteria and molds to grow on those canvas, and if they are not properly cleaned, can lead to infections. It doesn't even really take an open wound or anything, MRSA and other staph bacteria can infect you just thru your skin or from inhalation. Another excellent place to pick up staph is on gym equipment or in public showers. I think everyone knows I spend a bit of time at the gym.
So, after a couple days of having this small bump get bigger and harder, I figured out that I was dealing with a staph infection. Since I do not have a regular primary care physician, and my previous experience with Urgent Cares with a staph infection was not a pleasant one, I went to the emergency room at my local hospital, where they sliced me open, gave a prescription for antibiotics to fend off the staph, and sent me on my way. Aside from a few days of pain from the incision, I was ok, and no one really knew what was wrong - after all it was only a skin infection.
Well, I try my damnedest to be a hardass in all walks of life. If you ever look at my wrestling schedule you can see that I stay pretty busy - lots of weekends with two shows on the road, lots of driving, lots of matches. If you haven't blocked the app on Facebook, you have probably noticed that I kill it in the gym just about every night too. Plus, my day job is a very physical and demanding job that keeps me on the road a lot as well.
Over the past couple months, I had been sick a lot. Just regular colds and flu type of stuff. Just being run down and dealing with sinus problems. With this wacky-ass weather and an overall crazy winter, I figured it was just my sinuses. However, more and more people were politely telling me that I look like crap. Not just occasionally, but regularly. My girlfriend would tell me she was worried about me, because I just didn't look right. My mother would worry about me. Friends and family were starting to mention that I had been getting sick a lot. And I had been. It was almost like I was on a cycle - one week of good health, one week of feeling like shit.
So, with no wrestling shows the first weekend in April, I had two weeks to really kill it and get back in the gym and try to make up for lost time. Monday night I weighed in at the gym (as I do regularly), and I got the shock of a lifetime - I was twenty pounds heavier than I was like two weeks ago. I knew I was more bloated recently, but I figured it was water weight from being sick - but twenty pounds? I hadn't weighed this much in about five years, it didn't seem right.
Tuesday while grinding it out at work, I just didn't feel right. Really lazy, really lethargic. I put in some overtime, and after I left work, I just felt like shit, so I didn't go to the gym. I was pissed at myself, but soon I realized that it was the "cycle" and this was my sick week. I stopped by the pharmacy and picked up some OJ and some allergy medicine, preparing to fight off a bad sinus cold. I got home, got in the shower, and found a skin infection.
Staph was back.
Wanting to be proactive, I lanced infection myself to try to drain it, which worked, but nothing much came out. So, I cleaned it out and I hunkered down for the evening and prepared to fight off a cold, and I started getting sicker. It was weird, I could feel it. My body started hurting more and more, my head filled up with mucous, and I just felt like complete shit. Then I started having trouble walking. I started dropping things. I was ridiculously thirsty. I called my girl (and my mother) and told them that something was wrong with me, I just didn't feel right. By the time midnight rolled around, I felt like I was going to die - literally.
When my ladies called to check on me Wednesday morning, I was not exaggerating when I said I felt like I was dying, and that I needed to go to the doctor. I got an appointment with a regular primary care physician that afternoon. I actually had my mother drive me, because I couldn't stay coherent enough to drive. Actually, I had a helluva time even walking. Little did I know that I had actually lost ten pounds since I weighed myself Monday night.
After visiting with the doc and some blood tests, it looks like this is what was wrong with me all along: Staph. I was worried that perhaps I had mono, but my white blood cells were at a normal level, indicating that it wasn't something viral, such as strep or mono. No, what it looks like is that my antibiotics were not strong enough earlier in the year to kill off the staph in my body. Although I had enough antibiotics in my body to kill off the skin infection, the staph just floated around in my blood, wearing me down and kicking my ass. I looked like shit for the past two months because my body was trying to fight it off. So, when I wore my body down enough, the staph broke me down some more. In hindsight, I had been "breaking out" for a week or so with acne, but it was actually the staph. So, doc put me on the shelf for five days, and gave me stronger antibiotics.
Last night, my fourth day on antibiotics, I finally felt good enough to leave the house for anything longer than a trip to the store for fluids. This thing thoroughly kicked my ass. Not only did I burn up three more days of vacation time at work, but I missed going to the Wolfhounds RFC game Saturday, going to NWF Saturday night to hang out with Machine Gun and company, checking the Reds game out today down at GABP, and being able to do anything but sit around and watch television. Ugh.
I did get to spend some quality time with two awesome ladies who love me and took good care of me - Mom and Ms. Shannon. Mom took me to the doc and let me crash on her couch to watch Opening Day so she could keep an eye on me. Shannon spent all weekend watching over me and taking care of me, and not letting me do anything stupid - like go to the gym. It was great to just get to spend time with her without having to worry about leaving for a match that night, or about her having time to do homework and stuff.
After waking up at 7:30 this morning, I have laid around all day, and I am still tired. Back to the grind with work tomorrow. Hopefully I can get back to the gym this week.
Somehow, with all the crazy health issues I have had this year, I have yet to miss a match. I do not plan on missing out at WWC this coming weekend either...
A few years back, I had a major bout with MRSA, supposedly after being bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider. If you are unfamiliar, MRSA is a type of staph infection, which can be deadly. I was bitten in the arm, and ended up having surgery on my arm, to cut out dead tissue. Not fun.
 |
| My gaping wound - big enough to stick your finger in to the first joint! |
You see, staph infections are very easy to get when you are a wrestler. When people sweat and bleed all over a canvas, it is easy for bacteria and molds to grow on those canvas, and if they are not properly cleaned, can lead to infections. It doesn't even really take an open wound or anything, MRSA and other staph bacteria can infect you just thru your skin or from inhalation. Another excellent place to pick up staph is on gym equipment or in public showers. I think everyone knows I spend a bit of time at the gym.
So, after a couple days of having this small bump get bigger and harder, I figured out that I was dealing with a staph infection. Since I do not have a regular primary care physician, and my previous experience with Urgent Cares with a staph infection was not a pleasant one, I went to the emergency room at my local hospital, where they sliced me open, gave a prescription for antibiotics to fend off the staph, and sent me on my way. Aside from a few days of pain from the incision, I was ok, and no one really knew what was wrong - after all it was only a skin infection.
Well, I try my damnedest to be a hardass in all walks of life. If you ever look at my wrestling schedule you can see that I stay pretty busy - lots of weekends with two shows on the road, lots of driving, lots of matches. If you haven't blocked the app on Facebook, you have probably noticed that I kill it in the gym just about every night too. Plus, my day job is a very physical and demanding job that keeps me on the road a lot as well.
Over the past couple months, I had been sick a lot. Just regular colds and flu type of stuff. Just being run down and dealing with sinus problems. With this wacky-ass weather and an overall crazy winter, I figured it was just my sinuses. However, more and more people were politely telling me that I look like crap. Not just occasionally, but regularly. My girlfriend would tell me she was worried about me, because I just didn't look right. My mother would worry about me. Friends and family were starting to mention that I had been getting sick a lot. And I had been. It was almost like I was on a cycle - one week of good health, one week of feeling like shit.
So, with no wrestling shows the first weekend in April, I had two weeks to really kill it and get back in the gym and try to make up for lost time. Monday night I weighed in at the gym (as I do regularly), and I got the shock of a lifetime - I was twenty pounds heavier than I was like two weeks ago. I knew I was more bloated recently, but I figured it was water weight from being sick - but twenty pounds? I hadn't weighed this much in about five years, it didn't seem right.
Tuesday while grinding it out at work, I just didn't feel right. Really lazy, really lethargic. I put in some overtime, and after I left work, I just felt like shit, so I didn't go to the gym. I was pissed at myself, but soon I realized that it was the "cycle" and this was my sick week. I stopped by the pharmacy and picked up some OJ and some allergy medicine, preparing to fight off a bad sinus cold. I got home, got in the shower, and found a skin infection.
Staph was back.
Wanting to be proactive, I lanced infection myself to try to drain it, which worked, but nothing much came out. So, I cleaned it out and I hunkered down for the evening and prepared to fight off a cold, and I started getting sicker. It was weird, I could feel it. My body started hurting more and more, my head filled up with mucous, and I just felt like complete shit. Then I started having trouble walking. I started dropping things. I was ridiculously thirsty. I called my girl (and my mother) and told them that something was wrong with me, I just didn't feel right. By the time midnight rolled around, I felt like I was going to die - literally.
When my ladies called to check on me Wednesday morning, I was not exaggerating when I said I felt like I was dying, and that I needed to go to the doctor. I got an appointment with a regular primary care physician that afternoon. I actually had my mother drive me, because I couldn't stay coherent enough to drive. Actually, I had a helluva time even walking. Little did I know that I had actually lost ten pounds since I weighed myself Monday night.
After visiting with the doc and some blood tests, it looks like this is what was wrong with me all along: Staph. I was worried that perhaps I had mono, but my white blood cells were at a normal level, indicating that it wasn't something viral, such as strep or mono. No, what it looks like is that my antibiotics were not strong enough earlier in the year to kill off the staph in my body. Although I had enough antibiotics in my body to kill off the skin infection, the staph just floated around in my blood, wearing me down and kicking my ass. I looked like shit for the past two months because my body was trying to fight it off. So, when I wore my body down enough, the staph broke me down some more. In hindsight, I had been "breaking out" for a week or so with acne, but it was actually the staph. So, doc put me on the shelf for five days, and gave me stronger antibiotics.
Last night, my fourth day on antibiotics, I finally felt good enough to leave the house for anything longer than a trip to the store for fluids. This thing thoroughly kicked my ass. Not only did I burn up three more days of vacation time at work, but I missed going to the Wolfhounds RFC game Saturday, going to NWF Saturday night to hang out with Machine Gun and company, checking the Reds game out today down at GABP, and being able to do anything but sit around and watch television. Ugh.
I did get to spend some quality time with two awesome ladies who love me and took good care of me - Mom and Ms. Shannon. Mom took me to the doc and let me crash on her couch to watch Opening Day so she could keep an eye on me. Shannon spent all weekend watching over me and taking care of me, and not letting me do anything stupid - like go to the gym. It was great to just get to spend time with her without having to worry about leaving for a match that night, or about her having time to do homework and stuff.
After waking up at 7:30 this morning, I have laid around all day, and I am still tired. Back to the grind with work tomorrow. Hopefully I can get back to the gym this week.
Somehow, with all the crazy health issues I have had this year, I have yet to miss a match. I do not plan on missing out at WWC this coming weekend either...
Thursday, March 03, 2011
She Has a Drinking Problem
It is not very often that I write anything about my personal life. Despite being a wrestler who performs weekly in front of crowds of people in different states, despite my activity social networking, despite my blogs, despite everything - I actually do not talk about myself outside of the ring very much at all.
On occasion, something from my life outside of wrestling creeps in however. This is one of those occasions. Taking the advice of someone very, very important to me, I have actually decided to write about it.
I moved down to Cincinnati a few years ago, and after about a year I met a woman that I fell in love with. We both worked together, so we decided to keep our relationship quiet for awhile, just to avoid workplace gossip and whatnot. After awhile though, people found out and it was all over that we were dating. Eventually we moved in together, and the relationship became very serious. She had her demons and her faults, just as I did. I tried to look past them however, and to help her out.
When I first moved back to Cincinnati, I was actually at a pretty low point in my life. My self confidence was shot, and I was going thru a very rough divorce. During my marriage, I tried to walk a fine line between my hopes & dreams, and trying to make someone else happy. In the end, I ended up having my hopes and dreams smashed to bits, and a wife that whored around with a band. So, I was back in my hometown, feeling pretty shitty about myself, and really just hating life. I picked up an injury at work to my eye, and I was out for a little while on workman's comp, until I could see again - and that was when we became involved. I was probably at my lowest point in life, and she pulled me out of it. She looked past all of my shortcomings and was there for me and was very supportive of me. I could never ever forget what she did for me.
But she had a drinking problem.
She wasn't your typical alcoholic. She was a binge drinker that also had an eating disorder. She would go 2-3 days without eating, and then she would gorge herself on alcohol. My father, my real father, had a drinking problem too, so I tried to help her, but I knew forcing the situation wasn't the way to go.
She was a few years older than me, and had three children. None of them lived with her, which should have been a red flag. I wanted to help her, so I decided I would be there for her, and try to be an example to her (which probably doesn't make much sense). I helped her start eating regularly, we started going to the gym together, and it eventually won the children over. I think they saw that I was making their mom a better person to be around; she was healthier.
Every once in awhile the alcoholic part would come roaring back. It would usually surface on a Friday night, when she would go out for drinks with a client, or to a golf outing, or something, and tie one on pretty good. When she did this, she would forget to pick up her children, she would foresake any plans, she would be impossible to get in contact with on her mobile phone. After a few times, I kinda learned to deal with it.
As our relationship got deeper, the subject of children would pop up. I never had any, and she had three, and was medically no longer able to have them. She broke down in tears one night telling me how much she wanted to make a baby with me, but couldn't. I told her that if it wasn't meant to be, then it wasn't. She then told me that she could tell I loved her kids, and that she wished that I was their father. I told her that I would always treat them as if they were mine.
Shortly after that, while putting in some late hours at work, I received a phone call that she had been in a very bad car accident. I rushed out the door and drove down to Kentucky to get her... from jail. It seems that at about 6:30pm that night, she plowed into a concrete wall on I-275, rather than pick a lane. She blew a .02 when they gave her a breath test - not enough to charge her. However, it was enough to let me know she had been drinking on the job. She refused to go to the doctor at all, and demanded to go home, where she went to sleep.
The next day she was hardly able to walk due to pain, so she went to the doctor, and it was discovered she had a level three concussion. There wasn't much they could do at this point, so they gave her medication to manage the symptoms. Keep in mind she wasn't an athlete going out to compete or anything - she was just having horrible headaches and was trying to work and be a mother. Over the next few weeks, she would call me in the middle of the day and ask me if I knew where she was supposed to be that day, because she was driving in a strange part of town and couldn't remember why. She was having blackouts.
Everything came to a head shortly after that. She had one of her Friday night adventures. Only this time, it was worse. Her ex-husband started calling me, worried because she was supposed to be picking up the kids for important things, and was unable to be contacted. I tried to get a hold of her, to no avail. I was up until the wee hours of the night, worried about where she was and fielding calls from her daughter.
Early the next morning, she came home. When I confronted her about where she had been, she tried to spin it around on me. It was my fault she had to spend the night in jail. Huh? What? Jail? Yeah, she had a blackout, and the cops pulled her over way out on the other side of town. Why was she out there? Why didn't she come home? According to her, she had a blackout from the concussion, and must have been driving around all night. She was pulled over and failed a sobriety test, and was arrested for driving while intoxicated. She blew a .14 I believe, which was almost twice the legal limit. She swears she wasn't drinking however. Her medication caused her to have that blood-alcohol level. We looked thru her phone to see who she called, and found no strange calls. However, her photo album revealed she went bar-hopping.
I honestly do not know what happened that night. I know that I was very angry with her. She hid the DUI from her children, but eventually had to spend a weekend in court ordered rehab. Her DUI almost cost her a new job she was just hired for, as having a suspended license would have made the job impossible. Somehow, she survived yet another one, and she amped up her drinking afterward. She stopped eating. She stopped working out at all. Her oldest daughter moved in with us after finishing school.
Things were getting tense. Her old medical issues resurfaced, and she was constantly in pain. She was drinking all the time, but hiding it by mixing vodka with lemonade. She thought it was hilarious that she was drinking "road pop" with the kids in the car. I was trying to be supportive, and be there for her, but I was clueless on what to do.
A few months later she ended up buying a house (my credit sucks - thanks wrestling!), and we moved in just as her oldest daughter became engaged. A wedding was set for when her beau returned on leave from bootcamp. We were starting to make a nice little home for ourselves, when, oddly, her awesome new job suddenly soured to her. She was constantly looking for schemes and jobs that she could do while using up her sick-days up for her company. Then, out of the blue one day, her company fired her. I have no evidence to back this up, but my gut feeling is they found out she was job-hunting while she was supposed to be out making deals, and they terminated her.
So suddenly she had a wedding to help pay for, a new house payment to make, in addition to a slew of other bills. Her company had paid for her car and her fuel, and that was now over. We were screwed. Yes. We. I looked at the situation and realized that she was sinking pretty damn low. I saw that she needed me. I actually made the decision that I was going to hang up my wrestling boots, so that I could be there for her more than ever. I informed her of this.
It was too late however. I was her scapegoat. Wrestling was to blame. Her DUIs, her unemployment, her situation was all because I was a wrestler. It was all my fault. It was never going to work out between us. Besides, we could never have a baby.
So, the week of her daughter's wedding, I moved all of my belongings out of the house. A house that was supposed to be our home. I didn't get all of my belongings either. While I was out looking for a place to live, she threw out a bunch of my stuff. Or kept it. Who knows. I am missing a ton of CDs, videos, clothes - whatever. Oh, and don't forget how in a drunken rage she threw herself in front of my moving truck, as if I were a tank in Tienanmen Square.
What the fuck Dana? I still do not get your train of thought after all this time. I just don't.
I didn't get it, and I still do not. Why in the world would you push away the person in your life ready and willing to be there for you when your times were darkest? Why would you go thru the trouble and effort and the love required to rescue me from my doldrums, only to push me away when you needed me to do the same for you? I was prepared, and in a way looking forward to making sacrifices and going thru hard times with you. That is not what you wanted though.
You tried to paint me as a monster to your children, which is what hurt the most. I loved those kids. Still do, really. I miss sitting around and playing Rockband with them, or our home being full of kids every weekend.
I was pissed at you, and I still am, for you being a pussy. You chose the life of an alcoholic over me. That is not something that I am just saying, because you stood in the kitchen, leaning over the counter with tears welling up in your eyes and said that you were tired of feeling tied down by trying to be what you thought that I wanted, and you needed to do what you wanted to do.
By all reports that I have received from everyone who has ever ran into you, what you wanted to be was a full blown alcoholic. I have heard from people that have seen you at nine in the morning that they thought you were drunk. I have had people tell me that they thought you looked like you were on meth. Every time I hear these things, a little piece of me would die inside, a little bit of my heart would break. I wished that you would have let me be there for you.
I think back to how we talked about how we would grow old, and we would get a house with a porch swing, and we would sit out on the swing and watch the sun go down, and play with the grandkids and be happy together. I remember how when we were arguing, right before the end, how you said that was all bullshit, and that you knew it would never happen.
The other day, I was talking to someone very very important to me. She sent me a link to a house that she was looking into perhaps getting. The house had a pretty awesome looking front porch, and she mentioned how it would be pretty cool to get a porch swing, and we could sit out there together.
That made me realize something: I already have what we were supposed to have. I have Shannon, and she is awesome. She loves me. I know this, because she does not hesitate to write me an email or a letter to tell me. She will make me wonderful things to let me know she loves me. When I feel like shit, she lets me know that I am her world. She picks me up when I am down. And she lets me do the same thing for her. When she is having a bad day, she tells me about it, and then I do what i can to cheer her up. She tells me how much this means to her. She tells me that I am doing something right.
This week, I heard two different stories from completely different sources about your exploits recently. The two stories just so happen to confirm each other. From what I understand, your license was suspended? You have no car? You once gain have no job? You have no money, yet you still go out drinking, and offer to sleep with whomever will pay your bar tab?
Well, I have a job. I have food on my table. I get to do what I love to do just about every weekend. I have a beautiful, wonderful intelligent woman in my life that loves me as much as I love her. She has no clue how much her comment about a porch swing meant to me.
I am so fucking over you. That is why I call you the Red-Headed Monster. You attempted to ruin my life, just like so many others have hurt me. Yet, I am still standing. This Armenian sumbitch does not go down easy.
Karma is a bitch.
I love you Shannon.
On occasion, something from my life outside of wrestling creeps in however. This is one of those occasions. Taking the advice of someone very, very important to me, I have actually decided to write about it.
I moved down to Cincinnati a few years ago, and after about a year I met a woman that I fell in love with. We both worked together, so we decided to keep our relationship quiet for awhile, just to avoid workplace gossip and whatnot. After awhile though, people found out and it was all over that we were dating. Eventually we moved in together, and the relationship became very serious. She had her demons and her faults, just as I did. I tried to look past them however, and to help her out.
When I first moved back to Cincinnati, I was actually at a pretty low point in my life. My self confidence was shot, and I was going thru a very rough divorce. During my marriage, I tried to walk a fine line between my hopes & dreams, and trying to make someone else happy. In the end, I ended up having my hopes and dreams smashed to bits, and a wife that whored around with a band. So, I was back in my hometown, feeling pretty shitty about myself, and really just hating life. I picked up an injury at work to my eye, and I was out for a little while on workman's comp, until I could see again - and that was when we became involved. I was probably at my lowest point in life, and she pulled me out of it. She looked past all of my shortcomings and was there for me and was very supportive of me. I could never ever forget what she did for me.
But she had a drinking problem.
She wasn't your typical alcoholic. She was a binge drinker that also had an eating disorder. She would go 2-3 days without eating, and then she would gorge herself on alcohol. My father, my real father, had a drinking problem too, so I tried to help her, but I knew forcing the situation wasn't the way to go.
She was a few years older than me, and had three children. None of them lived with her, which should have been a red flag. I wanted to help her, so I decided I would be there for her, and try to be an example to her (which probably doesn't make much sense). I helped her start eating regularly, we started going to the gym together, and it eventually won the children over. I think they saw that I was making their mom a better person to be around; she was healthier.
Every once in awhile the alcoholic part would come roaring back. It would usually surface on a Friday night, when she would go out for drinks with a client, or to a golf outing, or something, and tie one on pretty good. When she did this, she would forget to pick up her children, she would foresake any plans, she would be impossible to get in contact with on her mobile phone. After a few times, I kinda learned to deal with it.
As our relationship got deeper, the subject of children would pop up. I never had any, and she had three, and was medically no longer able to have them. She broke down in tears one night telling me how much she wanted to make a baby with me, but couldn't. I told her that if it wasn't meant to be, then it wasn't. She then told me that she could tell I loved her kids, and that she wished that I was their father. I told her that I would always treat them as if they were mine.
Shortly after that, while putting in some late hours at work, I received a phone call that she had been in a very bad car accident. I rushed out the door and drove down to Kentucky to get her... from jail. It seems that at about 6:30pm that night, she plowed into a concrete wall on I-275, rather than pick a lane. She blew a .02 when they gave her a breath test - not enough to charge her. However, it was enough to let me know she had been drinking on the job. She refused to go to the doctor at all, and demanded to go home, where she went to sleep.
The next day she was hardly able to walk due to pain, so she went to the doctor, and it was discovered she had a level three concussion. There wasn't much they could do at this point, so they gave her medication to manage the symptoms. Keep in mind she wasn't an athlete going out to compete or anything - she was just having horrible headaches and was trying to work and be a mother. Over the next few weeks, she would call me in the middle of the day and ask me if I knew where she was supposed to be that day, because she was driving in a strange part of town and couldn't remember why. She was having blackouts.
Everything came to a head shortly after that. She had one of her Friday night adventures. Only this time, it was worse. Her ex-husband started calling me, worried because she was supposed to be picking up the kids for important things, and was unable to be contacted. I tried to get a hold of her, to no avail. I was up until the wee hours of the night, worried about where she was and fielding calls from her daughter.
Early the next morning, she came home. When I confronted her about where she had been, she tried to spin it around on me. It was my fault she had to spend the night in jail. Huh? What? Jail? Yeah, she had a blackout, and the cops pulled her over way out on the other side of town. Why was she out there? Why didn't she come home? According to her, she had a blackout from the concussion, and must have been driving around all night. She was pulled over and failed a sobriety test, and was arrested for driving while intoxicated. She blew a .14 I believe, which was almost twice the legal limit. She swears she wasn't drinking however. Her medication caused her to have that blood-alcohol level. We looked thru her phone to see who she called, and found no strange calls. However, her photo album revealed she went bar-hopping.
I honestly do not know what happened that night. I know that I was very angry with her. She hid the DUI from her children, but eventually had to spend a weekend in court ordered rehab. Her DUI almost cost her a new job she was just hired for, as having a suspended license would have made the job impossible. Somehow, she survived yet another one, and she amped up her drinking afterward. She stopped eating. She stopped working out at all. Her oldest daughter moved in with us after finishing school.
Things were getting tense. Her old medical issues resurfaced, and she was constantly in pain. She was drinking all the time, but hiding it by mixing vodka with lemonade. She thought it was hilarious that she was drinking "road pop" with the kids in the car. I was trying to be supportive, and be there for her, but I was clueless on what to do.
A few months later she ended up buying a house (my credit sucks - thanks wrestling!), and we moved in just as her oldest daughter became engaged. A wedding was set for when her beau returned on leave from bootcamp. We were starting to make a nice little home for ourselves, when, oddly, her awesome new job suddenly soured to her. She was constantly looking for schemes and jobs that she could do while using up her sick-days up for her company. Then, out of the blue one day, her company fired her. I have no evidence to back this up, but my gut feeling is they found out she was job-hunting while she was supposed to be out making deals, and they terminated her.
So suddenly she had a wedding to help pay for, a new house payment to make, in addition to a slew of other bills. Her company had paid for her car and her fuel, and that was now over. We were screwed. Yes. We. I looked at the situation and realized that she was sinking pretty damn low. I saw that she needed me. I actually made the decision that I was going to hang up my wrestling boots, so that I could be there for her more than ever. I informed her of this.
It was too late however. I was her scapegoat. Wrestling was to blame. Her DUIs, her unemployment, her situation was all because I was a wrestler. It was all my fault. It was never going to work out between us. Besides, we could never have a baby.
So, the week of her daughter's wedding, I moved all of my belongings out of the house. A house that was supposed to be our home. I didn't get all of my belongings either. While I was out looking for a place to live, she threw out a bunch of my stuff. Or kept it. Who knows. I am missing a ton of CDs, videos, clothes - whatever. Oh, and don't forget how in a drunken rage she threw herself in front of my moving truck, as if I were a tank in Tienanmen Square.
What the fuck Dana? I still do not get your train of thought after all this time. I just don't.
I didn't get it, and I still do not. Why in the world would you push away the person in your life ready and willing to be there for you when your times were darkest? Why would you go thru the trouble and effort and the love required to rescue me from my doldrums, only to push me away when you needed me to do the same for you? I was prepared, and in a way looking forward to making sacrifices and going thru hard times with you. That is not what you wanted though.
You tried to paint me as a monster to your children, which is what hurt the most. I loved those kids. Still do, really. I miss sitting around and playing Rockband with them, or our home being full of kids every weekend.
I was pissed at you, and I still am, for you being a pussy. You chose the life of an alcoholic over me. That is not something that I am just saying, because you stood in the kitchen, leaning over the counter with tears welling up in your eyes and said that you were tired of feeling tied down by trying to be what you thought that I wanted, and you needed to do what you wanted to do.
By all reports that I have received from everyone who has ever ran into you, what you wanted to be was a full blown alcoholic. I have heard from people that have seen you at nine in the morning that they thought you were drunk. I have had people tell me that they thought you looked like you were on meth. Every time I hear these things, a little piece of me would die inside, a little bit of my heart would break. I wished that you would have let me be there for you.
I think back to how we talked about how we would grow old, and we would get a house with a porch swing, and we would sit out on the swing and watch the sun go down, and play with the grandkids and be happy together. I remember how when we were arguing, right before the end, how you said that was all bullshit, and that you knew it would never happen.
The other day, I was talking to someone very very important to me. She sent me a link to a house that she was looking into perhaps getting. The house had a pretty awesome looking front porch, and she mentioned how it would be pretty cool to get a porch swing, and we could sit out there together.
That made me realize something: I already have what we were supposed to have. I have Shannon, and she is awesome. She loves me. I know this, because she does not hesitate to write me an email or a letter to tell me. She will make me wonderful things to let me know she loves me. When I feel like shit, she lets me know that I am her world. She picks me up when I am down. And she lets me do the same thing for her. When she is having a bad day, she tells me about it, and then I do what i can to cheer her up. She tells me how much this means to her. She tells me that I am doing something right.
This week, I heard two different stories from completely different sources about your exploits recently. The two stories just so happen to confirm each other. From what I understand, your license was suspended? You have no car? You once gain have no job? You have no money, yet you still go out drinking, and offer to sleep with whomever will pay your bar tab?
Well, I have a job. I have food on my table. I get to do what I love to do just about every weekend. I have a beautiful, wonderful intelligent woman in my life that loves me as much as I love her. She has no clue how much her comment about a porch swing meant to me.
I am so fucking over you. That is why I call you the Red-Headed Monster. You attempted to ruin my life, just like so many others have hurt me. Yet, I am still standing. This Armenian sumbitch does not go down easy.
Karma is a bitch.
I love you Shannon.
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