The Girl Who Wanted 400

I spent most of my adult life standing in front of a mirror.

Not because I was vain. Because it was my job. Twenty five years of other people's reflections, other people's stories, other people's pain absorbed quietly while I stood behind the chair and held it all together. I was good at it. I was good at most things I decided to do — cooking, art, music, hair. I collected skills the way some people collect scars, and I wore them like armor.

From the outside it looked like confidence. It wasn't. It was the result of a woman who had been let down by people she was innately supposed to trust, who decided somewhere along the way that the only reliable person in her life was going to be herself. I had ended a ten year marriage to a man who hurt my children. I had given that marriage everything — my autonomy, my identity, my ability to pay a bill or make a decision without permission. When I finally got strong enough to leave, I didn't know how to adult anymore.

So I put my head down and worked.

I built a business. I bought a house by myself. I relocated my family to Wenatchee and I showed up every single day in boss bitch mode because the alternative was sitting still long enough to feel what I was actually carrying. I was a chameleon — adapting to fit whatever everyone needed me to be. Chef, florist, artist, glam squad. I know I have many talents. But I was starting to realize I was using every single one of them to look for validation from the outside because I felt so hollowed out on the inside.

I wanted to be so undeniably capable that it would erase everything I couldn't make up for from my past.

My children were abused. I didn't protect them the way a mother is supposed to. I didn't know what was happening until I did, and by then the damage was done. I carried that guilt like a stone I had no right to put down. So I didn't. I just kept moving. Keep moving, keep producing, keep performing. If I stayed busy enough maybe no one would see the cracks. Maybe I wouldn't either.

The gym came into my life accidentally the way most important things do.

I had started running because I wanted to like it, not because I did. I ran until I got hurt. A physical therapist told me I'd benefit from strength training, and right next door to her office was a gym. I walked in, hired the owner, and discovered almost immediately that lifting weights made more sense to my body than running ever had. John and Tracy became friends. The gym became social. It became something I looked forward to.

But it wasn't until Labor Day that everything changed.

The parking spaces were empty except for a big Ford truck out front.

I opened the door and the temperature felt the same as outside. It smelled like dust and metal — like my dad's garage, but without the oil. The walls were a calico of exposed brick under worn layers of paint, yellow and grey with splotches of red. A large strip of green astroturf ran down the middle of the floor. Platforms with barbells. Equipment I had never seen before scattered about. This was unlike any gym I had ever walked into.

I looked side to side trying to find a human in the place.

Dave popped up from his desk and came around to reveal his large self with a huge smile on his face. He was a big bearded guy — jolly in a way I was not expecting. He genuinely seemed excited I was there. We filled out paperwork, and then we just jumped in. He showed me all three lifts in that first session. I don't remember every detail of how it went. What I remember is driving home eager to come back Wednesday.

What I didn't know yet was that I had just walked into the most important room of my life.

Dave and I turned out to be an extraordinary combination. I am fearless about trying things. He is fearless about pushing people. From the very first session he showed me I could do things better than I thought I could. Not perform better. Do better. There is a difference — and for a woman who had spent 25 years making sure the package looked right, that question hit differently.

The mirror asked how do you look.

Dave's gym asked what can you do.

It didn't take long before powerlifting became the thing that was entirely mine.

I got my first elite total. I showed up to every session. The numbers were moving, the community was growing, and for the first time in as long as I could remember I was being measured on merit alone. Nobody in that gym cared what I had survived. They cared if I showed up and did the work. I did. Every time.

400 pounds became the number I needed to hit.

Not just as an athletic milestone. As proof. Proof that the woman who had clawed her way back from a decade of losing herself was real, was capable, was someone whose strength couldn't be taken away or given an allowance. I thought about what it would feel like to finally deadlift a number that was respectable in my own mind. How would I measure up? Was I as good as I thought? In the last phase of training the numbers were promising.

400 was going to fall.

The night before the meet I got rear ended.

I slept through my alarm the next morning and my teammate Emily had to come pick me up. We made it just in time for weigh ins at 11am, which meant I hadn't eaten or drunk anything. Refueling was delayed. I was already behind before I touched a bar.

The energy in the meet was good. I was having a hard time matching it.

I was distracted. My teammate was having the meet of her life — her first competition, lighter weight class, and she was set up to win best lifter. Something in me couldn't let that go. I started watching her instead of focusing on myself. I started doing desperate things. I wasn't having fun. I had told myself this meet was just a stepping stone to nationals — I just needed a qualifying total — and that mental exit ramp made me cavalier in a way I wasn't prepared for.

I was consumed with everything but myself.

On bench I watched my teammate use her lifting belt on her first attempt and thought — maybe I should try that. Quick note. Don't ever try something new on the platform. If you don't train with it, competition day is not the place to test it. I laid back, felt the strange sensation of the stiff leather across my torso, got the handoff, waited for the command.

START.

The weight flew but went straight up instead of back toward my face. It felt wrong. I blew past the rack command and got a red light.

I ditched the belt. Finished bench with two decent lifts. Moved on.

Deadlift was the final boss. This was the lift I had given everything to. 352, 380, then 400. The first attempt flew up without an issue.

Then the distraction fairy arrived again in the form of my teammate closing in.

There was a smelling salt company giving out samples in the warm up area. I didn't use them often but I decided it was time to pull out all the stops. I grabbed the little white bottle, gave it a shake, twisted off the cap. A puff of red smoke came out. I peered inside and it was red as blood. I had never seen red smelling salts before.

I looked at the platform. I heard my name called.

I put the open bottle to my face and took a huge inhaling breath through my nose. The lights got brighter. A high pitched hum rang in my ears. It felt like an ice pick going through my nose straight into my brain. I did not feel clear or animal ready to attack the bar. I stumbled onto the platform, touched my belt to make sure it was on, looked at 380 loaded on the bar.

And had no thought. None.

I bent over, grabbed the bar. It cracked off the floor and stopped. I was standing there with 380 hovering a few inches off the ground.

I dropped it.

Dave wouldn't change the attempt. I begged. I pleaded. I told him I had done it a hundred times in the gym, please give me a chance at 400. He said — show me you can deadlift 380 first.

I did. I stood right up with it. Good lift.

It wasn't 400. It wasn't what I wanted.

He gave me shit for the rack command. For the belt. For all of it — with honesty and care the way only Dave can. He pointed out what I couldn't see myself. I wasn't committed to anything. I had all the tools, all the training, and I showed up consumed with everything but the reason I was there.

It cost me my first shot at 400. It was my fault.

When I think back on that girl I want to give her a hug.

Not to comfort her. To tell her the truth.

I would tell her that the person she hates so much was a young mom who was really trying her best. That she trusted people she was supposed to be able to trust. That she didn't know what was being done to her and her children until the damage was already happening. That leaving took more courage than anything she would ever do on a platform. That the hypervigilance she carries every single day — the exhaustion of always scanning, always bracing — makes sense. It was how she survived.

I would tell her it's okay to talk about the hard things. That silence doesn't protect anyone. That there are more people carrying this exact guilt and this exact pain than she could possibly imagine, and that her story told out loud might be the thing that gives someone else permission to speak.

I would tell her you aren't done hitting your head on the wall yet.

But every wall you hit is taking you somewhere.

To be continued.