I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday. Embracing the past! 2023 in review
This past week, I got to look my past in the face, stare it in the eyes. I held it's hand, and took it in to embrace.
That is, I went to help backstage at a bodybuilding competition. I got to experience in some degree once again what I had left in 2022 while feeling incredibly broken. I went To face the stage, spotlight, and the past, that I will once again meet walking into in 2024. There were parts I expected, and some unexpected.
I often wondered what I would feel when I faced the past. I left it while I was sick, hurting and angry. What would I do when I saw it again? Would I embraced it. Would I cry? Regret? Would there be anger?
Surprisingly, it wasn't as strong or as large as I remembered it to be. Not as intimidating. As I took it in to myself, it felt soft, fleecy, altogether smaller. I don't think it shrunk. I don't think it changed, but in that moment it was apparent to me that I changed. I got bigger. Stronger. Not just physically, but mentally too.
2023 was a year of extreme growth, all in good ways.
I started 2023 already several months into strict powerlifting programming. It wasn't really new to me. I had started with a more strength based program when I started lifting. I had read book after book on programming for strength, and it was, and still is, always my end goal to be a powerlifter long term. When I started lifting, the big 3 lifts with low reps just brought something out in me I cannot describe, other than, incredible happiness.
At the time, I was surrounded by bodybuilders. It was a world that fascinated me equally. I knew before I hit the platform, that I needed to hit the stage first.
In fact, the end goal of Powerlifting became the reason I pushed through 11 months of bodybuilding competition. "Just get this bodybuilding thing off the table, and then you can be a powerlifter, Tamara.".
I love powerlifting. I am a powerlifter to my core.
I never planned on doing 2 powerlifting meets in 2023. I never planned on breaking 10 National Records in the tested division of WRPF either. But like everything else, my hard work paid off, and although I still feel a touch of impostor syndrome, I need to remember that I didn't get lucky. I busted my ass over it. I earned it. Still hard to spit out. I was raised to try be humble, but I earned it. Every jewel in my crown was earned.
Despite the love of powerlifting, the past still haunted me. Bodybuilding goals were still left on the table. The inner desire to produce excellence on the stage felt unfulfilled. The daily reminders in my gym brought my mind to the past often. The magazine features framed on the wall, the pink lifting straps I used throughout prep, the notebooks, and printouts on my desk, all a reminder that the last months of bodybuilding prep for my last competition was less than what I'd hoped for. All of it left me with an overwhelming sense of grief for what happened, and a need to meet that past once again.
Grief to me, is proof that we once loved something. A receipt you wave around to show that you've bought and paid the price. Even thought it hurt in the end, I realized I once loved and adored it. In fact, even though it hurt, I still loved it anyways. It made me grow.
When I left bodybuilding, I thought I'd pulled the plant out by the roots. I planted a new flower that I tended to and loved, but the other began to grow again.
I hate leaving things unfinished. I felt bodybuilding was unfinished, but also didnt want to touch it. What I realized, is that it wasn't so much that I hated it, but that I feared it. Feared hitting another terrible prep. Feared my own mind and what it can do when you do something as extreme as bodybuilding. Feared facing the broken pieces I left when I walked away. I decided I must face it. Look it in the eyes.
I accept fear as part of life now. You can't compete in anything without feeling a twinge of uncertainty or fear, but I've learned to push forward, despite the pounding in my heart that says, "turn back".
And that's how I ended up backstage this weekend, facing and embracing all of my past and taking steps into my future for 2024, knowing I MUST and will meet the past again and again.
Although I am choosing to do another round of bodybuilding competitions to check off some unchecked boxes, I'll be honest, it wasn't what I remembered it was.
Like I said earlier, it was smaller, and I saw that this year, despite all the feelings, I had grown BIG.
Powerlifting gave to me so much. My coaches this year gave to me so much mentally and educationally. I met an incredible group of people this year in the powerlifting community who breathed new life and experiences into me. Have lifted me, watered me, and made me grow from a seedling into a mighty oak, able to withstand harder winds. STRONG! and only growing stronger, BIGGER!
As such, I walked around backstage feeling notably different than I did a year ago. Not like a bodybuilder, but a powerlifter who sometimes is a bodybuilder for shits and giggles.
Just like when you're in a crowd of people who are different, and you feel it. I felt it there. I felt like a badass. Among the women anyways. Not in a, "I'm better than you" sort of way, but more, "Don't give me your sass, because I can pick you up and bench press you" ...Yeah, some of them had sass, LOL!
99% of them are bodybuilders. They've never stood on a platform, been covered in chalk, or felt the energy of a warm up room, the hard slaps on the back from your companions, or huffed the ammonia and screamed out "UP!!!" filled with adrenaline while being amongst some of the BIGGEST and strongest gentle giants I've even met (most of them anyways). Maybe in the gym on occasion for a few of them, but not on a competition platform.
Powerlifting gave me something this year that bodybuilding did not!
I felt STRONG and then I realized I WOULDNT BE HERE WITHOUT THE DECISIONS AND PIVOTS I MADE. They HURT when I made them, but they brought me here! They brought me to this moment this year, 10 National records later. Because of those decisions I am listed amongst some of the VERY strong women in this country, who are still drug free. It's a claim I'm proud of, and I've only scratched the surface of it.
Throughout 2023, when dealing with the sadness of the previous year, one thing ALWAYS remained constant despite those feelings. I didn't regret a thing that I did or had to do when I left bodybuilding. Not one thing. I listened to my gut, and my heart. Facing it only SOLIDIFIED that feeling.
When the night was over, I had one more look at my past, directly in the face for a moment that seemed longer than it probably was. I know I'll be looking it in the eyes again in 2024, and that the past is also my future, and again the 2023 Tamara will meet it with new strength.
As I walked away from my past, I laughed audibly walking into the dark towards my vehicle that night. Facing the past wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. In fact, it only showed me how strong I became.
I'll always thank it for the hard lessons. It will always be a part of me. And although it hurt, I will always love it as well. It made me who I am. It gave me my start.
Yes, new experiences will take over places in my heart. Good ones, bad ones, but I will always cherish the journey and lessons that that specific timeline gave to me.
My mind went to the past often this year, and made me wonder if I was stagnant and stuck in it, or if I had grown. Facing it proved I grew, and I realized that those who stay in their anger and bitterness....never growing, will only become more angry and bitter and sad.
I have grown, and I am happy!
In fact, I owe my past a beer, for without it, I wouldn't have had my record year!
And so, as 2023 ends, I put powerlifting to the side for the short time as I switch to bodybuilding for the 1st half of 2024, as I do still feel I need to walk that stage one more time.
My past I'm sure, is going to meet me in my future yet, but it no longer is scary., For I am an Oak Tree. I grew and I am growing!
I pray that your 2024 be full of growth as well.
God Bless !
Tamara
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