On Competing (Patreon)

[x-posted to Tumblr]
(this isn't a story - just putting my thoughts down!)

I'm doing a bodybuilding competition next month.

Those words alone are wild to type. Despite this being a goal of mine since puberty began, I think part of me never expected to actually do it. It is still, mere weeks away, something I can't quite wrap my head around. That I, who graduated high school at six-foot-two and 130 pounds, will soon be walking across a stage showing my wares.

I was never the hot guy. I wanted to be, of course, but I never was. I was nice, well-liked, popular even, but I was not hot, nor was I desired. I was not a jock. I didn't even play sports except for some rec soccer as a kid. I took a friend to prom.

These are memories that still run through my head as I look in the mirror at the man version of myself, the version I yearned so deeply to become. Probably thanks in no small part to the stories I write, I expected my adult self to be radically different in personality from the younger, meeker me. But he isn't. He's more confident, certainly. He stands tall with his chest out and his head high. He has a wonderfully stupid sense of humor and has learned to laugh without shame. He finally has a jawline (that took a while). He's had sex.

But fundamentally, I have always been him. It took me a long time to realize that I wasn't running from who I was - I was chasing who I was to become. The best part is that I like him. I like me. When I first started lifting weights, that wasn't the case. I was trying to gain weight and add muscle to fix myself, and that's probably why I had no success with it. It was after I became a fully formed man with thoughts and opinions of my own, dependent on no one else for financial support, that my mindset switched from "fixing" to "improving." I wasn't broken. I could just get better.

I still have a long way to go. I'm tall, so I want to get much bigger. I want to look like I'm made out of warm, pulsing marble. I want people to gasp when I walk in a room. I want to feel eyes on me at parties and lightly flex my arm to fill my sleeve as they watch. It's a vainglorious pursuit, but it's not because I think I'm worthless otherwise. It's just because I like muscle, and I like how it looks, and I want to look like that. I'm already proud of myself, but I know I can get prouder!

When I walk across the stage next month, spraytanned and dehydrated and hoping that my extreme muscle fetish isn't on full view, I'll be taking steps I never thought I'd take. I'm extremely proud of that. I'll be carrying my characters with me, drawing on them for inspiration and strength, lapsing into fantasy as I pose. But then, when it's done, I'll still be me, and that's great too. I'm getting better every day, I think.

But I won't lie: I think it's going to be fun to be the hot guy.