You Can Carry the Weight Now.
Since I was 17 you’ve shown me that I can be great. I wasn’t disciplined, but you showed me that I could be. I had potential and you showed me how to refine it. I was rough, but you loved that about me. When we first met, I didn’t really like you. You were cool, but you were hard to impress. You saw me at my lowest and helped me get to my highest. For that, I’m forever thankful. You showed me how to help others and how to use my gifts to accomplish my goals. For that, I could never repay you.
At 17 I asked you for a weight and you obliged. You put a weight on my shoulders & trusted that I could carry it. For a long time, I did. In 3 years, your weight turned into 107 wins to just 45 losses, & an All-American trophy. But you didn’t tell me that the weight would come at a cost. You didn’t tell me that while I was carrying the weight, I would have to lose my own weight. You never told me that the weight you gave me could crumble me mentally. You failed to mention that years after I left you alone, I would still lust after you. You gave me the weight I asked for, but never told me the cost of carrying it.
Your weight showed me how to be intense, unforgiving, relentless. Your weight showed how to be kind, caring, patient. Your weight showed me places in myself I never have seen and never want to see again. Through everything you showed me it’s what you didn’t show me that almost destroyed me. You packed extra weight and concealed them so well that until they became too much for me to carry, I had no idea were there. The problem is… you didn’t show me how to carry those hidden weights.
The hidden weight was years of not being able to work out because of flashbacks to dark days cutting weight. The hidden weight was never knowing how to respond to someone saying “oh my you’ve put on weight” or “packing on the pounds haven’t you?” or years not being able to look in a mirror because of the shame I felt. The hidden weight was becoming so invested in losing weight that I forgot what it was like to just carry my weight. The hidden weight was the mental toll it took to drop from 160 pounds to 141 pounds at 22 years old every week for 5 consecutive months. You never showed me those hidden weights, but you still gave me that great weight, knowing I could carry it.
The weight you gave me brought wins, titles & national recognition. For a long time, I carried that weight with pride and shame. I was strong on the outside, but inside I was done. In 2013, at my peak, I was done with you. I hated you and if it were not for one phone call, I would’ve left you. When we were done in 2014, I pretended to be happy we were done, but secretly I struggled not knowing how I was going to get on without you. From 2015 to 2020, I hated how I looked because you told me I was supposed to be skinny, despite appearing to be happy without you. Slowly those hidden weights became permanent & a part of me. I hated us for that.
Yet through it all, I refuse to let you go. We’ve come too far together to just walk away. So, we won’t. We won’t walk away. We can build a better future. A future that won’t be anything like our past. Let’s create a new lane together where we show folks behind us everything you showed me. Only in this new relationship, I’ll be an artist, you’ll be my brush and I’ll use each stroke to paint beautiful pictures and tell stories of the weights you gave me.
Good and bad. So that those who see our pictures, won’t ask for a weight without fully understanding it.
I turn 30 on Monday and for 13 years I’ve grown to deeply love you. I asked to carry a weight & you gave me one to carry. It made me who I am today. I’ll always love you for that. But you kept secrets about the weight you gave me. You gave me a bag of weight stuffed with the weight I asked for and a secret weight I never thought I would have to carry. That secret weight almost killed our relationship & me. Over time, I realized it’s time to give you this weight back, but I never knew how to do it. Now I do.
So, as we head for new adventures together & the next steps in life at 30, I’m excited to see where we go. But first…. Here Wrestling, You Can Carry the Weight Now.
About The author
Wayne L. Black is doctoral candidate at University of Kansas, where he studies the intersection of higher education and college athletics. A 2014 graduate of Mount St. Joseph University, Wayne spent three years as a college wrestler earning All American recognition as a senior before transitioning to coaching.
Follow Wayne on Twitter at https://twitter.com/WayneLBlack1 to learn more about him and his research that centers college athletics and my journey as a wrestling coach.