Call It What You Want To

Chapter 27: Taya

Life after Nationals seemed to zoom by.  We spent the first half of Spring Break by extending our time in Atlanta and visiting everything that we possibly could; like the LEGO Discovery Center, Atlanta Zoo, and letting Mila play with the water fountains at the Olympic park.

Okay, maybe Ky, my dad, and I were messing around with the water too.

By the time we got back to school, almost every teacher had a daily countdown written in the corner of their whiteboards: less than 50 school days left, and the number ticked down day after day.  I took it upon myself to keep the countdown going in Criminal Justice because Officer Jackson kept saying that he had bigger priorities for us than seeing a running time clock of how much longer he had to prepare us for our certification exam at the end of the year.

Between state testing and upcoming finals, along with the impending fear of graduation, my brain would be fried by the end of each day.  So I eventually became thankful for the calmness that had started to happen after school let out.

After Nationals, powerlifting was over for me, at least as a Greyhaven Hawk it was.  When I competed in Nationals, I don't think I made the full realization and connection that that was my last meet of the season.  It hit when I walked in for the first practice back from vacation and all my coaches looked at me like, "What are you doing here?", and I realized that I, and the three other seniors who had competed, had nothing left to train for.  Our season, and high school career, was over.

I went home to Kyler and my parents and cried over how much I was going to miss this.  Powerlifting had saved me, it gave me a purpose and a strength I never knew I had.  I made some of the best friends I could ever ask for and had memories that would last a lifetime.  I called Dylynn after she got done with practice to see if she was feeling anything yet, but her season wasn't technically over till the second-to-last week of May when she'd attend her final meet of her senior year.

With all this built up, my dad suggested maybe I look around for powerlifting gyms that were close to where I wanted to go to college.  Great idea, but that would mean I needed to know where I wanted to go!

John Jay in New York has been the goal for the last two years, and I was literally screaming my head off when I got accepted.  It was a chance to chase my dreams in the city that was known for making dreams come true.  So much has changed since I put in my application, though, and even more has changed since I first learned about the school.  The couple of colleges I had applied to in Indiana and the surrounding states had been more of a safety net in case John Jay didn't want me, but did I still want John Jay?

The acceptance deadline was creeping up, but I still had time.  I didn't wanna spend the rest of my senior year stressing about the future, ideally I didn't want to be stressing about anything at all but I won't get too picky.  Living in the present was something I was still working on, accepting that the past had happened and I can't control the future.  Just one day at a time.

On the upside of being done with powerlifting, I got to spend more time after school with Kyler and my family.  It was my suggestion that we replace my gym time with family walks as the weather started to get nicer and the sun stayed out longer in the evening.  We were all on board with the idea and just about every night after dinner, weather permitting, we did the mile walk through our neighborhood, Mila and Maverick included.

Some days I missed the gym, and I knew I'd miss my muscles, so I still regularly went to the local gym several times a week to lift with Hallie since she was going through the "lifting withdrawals" too.  Kyler would occasionally join us, but it was "essay season" for her with everyone having a lot going on.  She took priority for the seniors who were cramming a million things in, and my girl was making some bank!  The amount of money she was able to make on Prom weekend alone was actually insane and made our idea to skip totally worth it.