(This essay was written as an assignment during my senior year of high school for an Introduction to College Writing course)
Dumbbells represent the weight of life and hardships we carry with us every day. Before I began my fitness journey, I was overweight and had been my entire life. I was weak not only physically but mentally as well. I started to exercise consistently and one of the first things that I noticed was the difficulty I faced with lifting dumbbells. It wasn’t that I lacked the physical strength to lift twenty pounds, I did not have the strength mentally to do so. The strain of the weight is dependent on a person's ability to confine themselves to the present rather than dwelling on the past.
When I was in elementary school, I remember being constantly confused whenever I saw another child interacting with their father. It was simple things such as their dad picking them up after school that made me wonder why my situation was so different from everyone else's. I didn't understand that my dad had passed away when I was a baby. I had grown up without someone who was willing to fill the role and the closest thing that I had to one was my older brother, Andrew. The man who was supposed to take up the position didn’t feel like it was his responsibility to do so, as we weren't his kids. Whenever my mom would refer to a person named "Daddy Dan", I just thought of him as someone I didn’t know or had never met. At this point, lifting a dumbbell was impossible due to my naïve outlook on life. I always held on to the idea that someday my dad would come home and I could finally experience the bond that a father and son share. I developed a sense of hope that I would carry with me for the rest of my life.
Upon entering middle school, my outlook had changed drastically. I now fully understood that my father was gone and was not coming back. I became fascinated with understanding who he was as a person and would always look for items or people that could give me insight into his life. It was then that I realized the severity of my situation. I began to notice that the way my step-father would treat us was not normal. Whenever I would stay at a friend's house, I thought it was abnormal that they had a dad in general, let alone one who was kind and caring. I remember constantly pondering the thought of how my life would be better if my father was alive. To ameliorate the stress in my life, I looked to video games and junk food as a means to escape my issues just as my father did with alcohol. This caused me to gain an unhealthy amount of weight leading into my first year of high school. I started to realize that the source of my life's hardships was my inability to accept the hand I was dealt, and not my weight.
At the beginning of freshman year, I was the heaviest I had ever been. The day I stepped onto the scale and weighed over two hundred pounds was when I made the decision to change my life. I started to lift weights and better myself as a person. I did not want to live a short life like my father, but I wanted to leave an impact on people like he did. I made amends with what happened to him, and accepted all of the hardships that I had faced were what shaped me into the person that I am. It was then that the ideals of hope and strength I had learned over my life came into fruition. I started to truly apply myself in my education, in hopes that someday I would be able to repay my mother and brother for all they have done for me. I stopped dealing with the stress of school and life by running away from my problems and instead chose to face them head on. This has helped more than anything else, I now handle the stress of having a job, staying caught up in school, and being the editor-in-chief of The Buzz with ease. Up to that point, I had lived my life in fear of my step-father. He would abuse my family verbally, and at some points, physically. He and my mother would fight constantly. I would stay out of the arguments unless they directly concerned me. The summer leading into sophomore year, I stopped being afraid. I stood my ground and defended my family. I placed myself firmly in front of him, shoved him out the front door, and told him to never come back. This led to my mother also standing her ground and finally divorcing him. This experience aided me in developing the mindset of not being afraid. Regardless of how large the obstacle may seem; I can always overcome it.
Today, I am a stronger individual physically and more importantly, mentally. I can finally lift dumbbells with ease and have confined myself to the present instead of dwelling on the past. I have learned what it means to be strong, to accept, and have hope; all from lifting weights. The most important lesson that weightlifting has taught me is that life is locomotion; if I am not moving, I am not living. There came a time in my life when I had to stop running away from the things that haunted me and start moving towards something.