last summer

When I talk about my hopes for this summer, I'm talking about the possibility of another chance to fight. I'm talking about lots of highly motivated training. Last summer, I didn't blog about my hopes for fear of somehow undermining them. Almost superstitious, but I didn't want to take any chances. You never know who might be out there with a voodoo doll, daring me to express a glimmer of happiness.

I've worked on my cardio to say the least, although ironically, I've never believed it was about my cardio. I remember jumping from one possibility to another, entry after entry. Hindsight's given me some perspective, so thought I'd sum up the possibilities. Any of them might be true, maybe a combination of factors, or maybe none of them. Maybe just my cardio, or something else entirely.

First, there's my age. I figure there's a good chance it was at least a consideration. Here's another fight from the same venue I posted the other day. One guy's 49, the other 57. Were they showing their age? Sure, but it seemed fine. There might be reluctance to match a 49 year old with a 23 year old, despite being in much better shape than these guys.

I wasn't even being ambitious enough for an event like this. I just wanted to fight at my own gym. A low key event with shin guards and foam helmets. Age doesn't seem like much of a reason to deny me on its own.

Another possibility is that he wanted another guy to get the fight, who's since moved on to bigger leagues, as I knew he wanted to do. This was his chance to get his feet wet, it helped get him started. The only problem being that he outweighed his opponent by 17 lbs. He outweighed me by 15 lbs. Already very lean, they had him cutting 12 lbs, and I suspect simply putting me name in the mix would give the other team the option to fight me, instead. 

This feels less likely, how dare I even suggest it, and yet the pieces add up awfully well. Maybe the coach told himself eh, the old guy probably shouldn't be fighting anyhow, so it's ok. I train with this guy all the time. Here he is a few months later.

The third possibility feels most likely to be the whole problem, or none of it. It is what shattered me, questioning what I've always thought was just low self-esteem. This wasn't just people being condescending and weird, but tangible consequences. One of the only things I've ever had any confidence about, shot down like I wasn't to be taken seriously.

People have been treating me strangely my entire life. I thought it must be due to my endocrine problems, but maybe it's never been about that. I think it's visible in how I carry myself, how I flounder expressing myself and socializing, maybe even in my bone structure. Autism is genetic, and if it interferes with social ability, maybe people immediately pick up on it and read too much into it. 

If someone is anything from schizophrenic to brain damaged, I can understand thinking it might not be a good idea to put them into the ring, and it sure seems like people often don't know what to make of me. They don't need to have any concept of autism to see someone behaving like an autistic person and make assumptions. 

I don't know if this is really true though. I can't figure out what people see or why they react to me the way they do. I know it's possible I'm getting it all wrong, which is a whole different kind of crazy. I just figured if I work hard enough, I can blow past expectations powerfully enough to crush all of it this time around.

Then it turned out I suddenly have to move and rent costs are insane. I've been so stressed, I keep faltering. I haven't been training enough. I don't know where I'll be living when the next event rolls around. I don't know if I'll be able to keep training at all. Even if it all works out ok, I'm struggling in the meantime to stay focused on being optimistic. It's not easy finding the motivation to go get beat up like I need to.