The Fight of My Life

Tonight, like any other, the warehouse is full and excitement is high.There’s nothing like this energy–the energy of a crowd on fight night, especially one that is cheering in your favor. And yes, all these people are here for me, regardless of who they came for. They just don’t know it yet.

In the midst of all these faceless fans, however, there is one I could never miss. Kira. As I look over I find her with ease. She’s ringside looking down at her phone. As my eyes settle on her, she looks up and our gazes lock.

She silences the noise.

Inhale.

I take in her bewitching hazel eyes. She holds the world in them.

Exhale.

She playfully tilts her head to the side and brushes a golden curl behind her ear. I wink at her and grin. She replies with her dimpled smile. It beams and she lights me up like a powerplant powering a city. She reminds me why I’m here, why I step into the ring. She grounds me.

I breathe, in and out.

I’m ready.

I pull my attention back to the ring and shake off anything that could distract me from this fight. I zero in on my opponent in their corner and wait for the match to begin.

The bell rings. I’m patient and watchful. I never take my eyes off him, like a wolf stalking its prey. I test him, throwing a few well placed jabs in his direction, nipping at him to see what he does. I have to be cunning. He’s a grizzly, a powerful southpaw fighter. But he’s also slow. And he doesn’t have the endurance that I do. That’s my advantage. I just can’t get too close to him too soon or this fight will be over sooner than it started. And that won’t happen.

Three minutes are up and the bell signals the end of round one.

Contrary to popular belief, the first round used to be the hardest for me. I’d explode out of my corner like lightning. Willing to take shots to get close to my opponents, I rained down a hurricane of fury, with one goal in mind– prove myself. Every time I stepped in the ring it was to prove that I was better than the issues in my life. I had been stuck in the same position at work for years, getting passed by people who were less qualified than me. My parents abandoned me, their only child, to chase drugs and fast money. Girls wanted me but only until they realized they couldn't fix me. I was alone, bitter, and filled with rage. Troubles like these, I brought them to the ring.

I won those fights too. But you wouldn’t know it by the way I showed up to work the following morning. “You should see the other guy” wouldn’t mean much since I always looked the same, if not worse than them. That, however, was my goal. Those fights, I used to punish myself. I wasn't enough. And I needed to know if I was or wasn’t some loser who can’t get anywhere in life, or keep anyone in it. So the first part of the first round was always a bit of a suicide mission. I had the ability to win those fights but I didn’t care. Only when I had lost my steam and a match ending blow would come my way would a crazed hunger be woken up inside of me. I’d get a jolt of electricity and slip into beast mode. By the second round it was game over for my opponent. I chased that high for as long as I could.

The bell starts round two.

Round two goes by like round three and four, uneventful and boring even. But I have to stick to the plan. This fight is six rounds or a knockout. I can make it six, probably even twelve rounds. But he can’t, not with me anyway. But I still have to be diligent. So I continue to tire him out. I take away some of his jaw popping power while conserving the bark in my bite until the next and round.

The past few rounds I relied on the muscle memory I gained in the grueling hours of training weeks prior to my fight. But here’s the trick. I don’t train to fight. I mean of course I train to fight but I train for more than that. I train to remember the day that I chose myself. All the times I felt like I was never going to amount to anything or the times that I almost gave up, those are the times that I train for. I never want to go back to the person I used to be.

Back in those days, I always let life happen to me. I never took the reins and steered myself in the direction that I wanted to go. I was a wolf with no pack in the wild. But one day, I met Tommy. That day, after my fight, he invited me to his gym to train. I was hyped. I finally felt seen, even when I hadn’t seen myself. So I took his offer. Unfortunately, I also quit that very day. Tommy acted like I didn't know how to box and put me in a class with beginners. I didn’t think I needed it. But I was sorely wrong. His beginner class had nothing to do with learning to land a hard punch.

The next day after work I walked by his gym. It was not too far from my miserable job. And I didn’t have anything better to do. Walking by the window I noticed that no one was working out or boxing. Everyone was just sitting or standing around him, engrossed in what he had to say. Curious, I slipped inside and listened too:

“Each of us are here for different reasons. Some of us are hot heads who need to channel their emotions. Others are here to learn self defense. A few are here simply for sport. There are some here who are lost and feel like they have nowhere else to go. But one way or another we are all here to fight for the same reason, control. How many of you feel you have control over your life? Not many hands. I used to feel the same way.

I was 16 when I started boxing. At the time, my mom had run off with some asshole and only came back when she needed money. She called it child support, but I lived with my dad. He barely acknowledged she was gone. And when he did he drank himself to the point of no return and took his anger out on me. More times than I can count, he broke my ribs and knocked me out.

At first I just took it. I assumed I had done something to him, or maybe I hadn’t done enough. But then, I was just heartbroken. I didn’t understand how he could do that to me, his son. We were always so close. It seemed like one day a switch went off in his head and he was a new person. He wasn’t. But I didn’t know that until much later.

What I later realized was that my dad was bare knuckle boxing his way through life, from a very young age. He did all the things he was supposed to do. He married the woman he was supposed to. He got a respectable job, had a kid, went to baseball games–the whole nine yards. But he never truly took control of his own life. He was merely playing a role. My mom leaving wasn’t what made him miserable. But it was what made him break.

My dad was blind with rage and went looking for anything and anyone to share his misery. And the day he finally broke out of his chains, aggression was pushing him forward while fear was grappling with his spirit. He was a rabid beast on the loose in the wilderness chasing for everything and nothing all at once. He was fighting a losing battle. And who knows how long he would’ve gone on like that, if it weren’t for me ending up in the hospital beaten within an inch of my life, after a disturbed neighbor heard what was going on in our house and called the police. They saved my life, or so I thought.

For years after that, I spiraled. I got into fights. I stole. I lied. I cheated. I ended up in jail right alongside my father. But before the last time I was released, I met someone who spoke life into my situation. Ivan. Ivan told me about his life. And he listened while I shared my story. At some point during our talks, I realized I had been chasing death. I was begging for any reason to give up, not a reason to live. Ivan encouraged me to look inside myself and listen. At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. My mind and body didn’t speak, is what I told myself. But I liked the old man’s company, so I let it go over my head. Eventually, I was released. At the time, I didn’t do anything miraculous. I stayed within the parameters of my parole. I kept my nose clean. I found a job, a job I found at a local gym. There weren’t many jobs for people like me. Day in and day out, I cleaned that gym. I watched the fighters train and fight. And I remembered the talks I had with Ivan in jail. And it clicked. I wanted the drive and the passion that they all had.

One day, as I was leaving the gym, I signed up for a class. The first night of training we had a talk similar to this with the owner of the gym. The sole purpose of that night was to find out the answer to one question: “who are you fighting for?” We all gave different variations of the same wrong answer. We wanted to fight for a family member, a friend, a relationship, the list goes on. But not one person said they wanted to fight for themselves. Not one person. When the owner pointed that out the room was silent. The next thing you know he’s yelling at the top of his lungs so fervently that the mirrors on the walls could’ve fallen off. He said, ‘you think I’ll coach a group of assholes who won’t fight for themselves? You expect me to show up day in and day out for you, and you won’t show up for yourselves?! You wanna fight for all these people in your life, for whatever reason. But no one, not one person, can fight for you and win without you fighting for yourself. And since I’m not in the business of losing, all of you can get the fuck out’

The room went silent, but not one of us moved. Men of all shapes and sizes, ages and backgrounds gathered in that room. Men who you’d never think would dare shed a tear, let their insecurities wash down their face like sweat as if they’d just finished twelve rounds of boxing. That night, I decided to take my life back. I trained alongside some amazing men and women at that gym, this gym. And I not only fell in love with the sport but I found a deep love for myself. It took my fucking breath away when I discovered all the things I could do.

Years later I took this place over from the owner after he got too old.

So anyway, here we are. Consider this day one. The day you decide what you’re fighting for. Because without any direction you’ll feel lost no matter where you're going or end up. And I’ll tell you right now, what you fight for is really a who. You can’t expect others to pour into you if you don’t believe in yourself. So before we throw a single punch that’s what we are going to do. We are going to train and find ourselves. We are going to fall in love with all the things we didn't know we could do. We are going to learn to nurture the kid whose parents didn't stick around, the person who was fed up with getting knocked around, the woman who is scared to walk to her car at night, the person who decided enough is enough. And we are going to capitalize on the things we can control and then embrace what we cannot.

That's going to be the reason you fight. Your reason to fight will be for the knowledge that as long as there's breath in your lungs no one can take the fight out of you, and no one can squelch the joy you find in yourself or your life. Because, they didn't put it there; and therefore, they can't take it away. It's yours.

Look around. Look at the people in front of you, next to you, and behind you. This is your safe space. Some of us will become close. Some won’t. That’s ok. But these are your people. These are the people who will hold you up, who will remind you why you stepped foot into this gym. They’ll be your biggest fans. They’ll push you forward when you think you can’t go any farther; because you can and they can see that. We all can. These are the people who will ground you. We’ll support you, but only you can choose to put the gloves on.”

I didn’t know that he knew I was there listening but he looked right at me before he continued to address the group. I took that as my cue and I walked over to take a seat. I sat down next to a girl with short blonde hair. She was fixated on her hands that were collecting tears. And like she could feel my eyes on her, she looked up at me and flashed a sad dimpled half smile. She was a fighter. I could just tell. Maybe that’s the feeling Tommy had when he invited each of us here.

That night there was an oddly hopeful air in the room. We all had our work cut out for us, for sure. But we had direction. We had our eyes on the prize–living.

Back in the ring, we go at each other exchanging hard punches, to the head and to the body. But my adversary is losing stamina. His strength is diminishing as his energy drains. Now’s my time to strike. I unleash the wolf and attack. I corner him and manage to land a sharp uppercut to his chin pushing him back into the ropes. Then, I slam another fist up into his face as he bounces back into the ropes again. I finish him off with a barrage of crisp blows to his stomach. One, two, three, four-- he’s done! He falls to the mat. And the fight is mine!

The final bell sounds and people flood the ring. I close my eyes and allow myself to submit to the joy bursting through my veins. Then I make my way to the ropes, where she is waiting for me. And I stick out my gloved hand to her. I want her in the ring. She grabs on and I lift her up and in. Pulling her into my arms, I lift her up and spin us around with my head tucked into the crook of her neck and leave a soft kiss. She giggles lightly and whispers,

“who did you fight for?”