III. I LIVED, BITCH. Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand.
How suddenly does the present become the past?
How often are we as humans left with a feeling of disappointment in the pits of our stomachs?
More often than not, unfortunately.
Why do we feel that disappointment?
Perhaps it’s because we didn’t make the most of our present, perhaps humanity is left disappointed because our futures arrived and it wasn’t remotely close to what we expected. Time flies past us yet billions remain stagnant. Wasting days, wasting weeks, wasting months clinging to some feeble concept of a future that will come purely if they wait. And wait and wait and wait. Let time slip by solely because the voice in your head tells you to simply be patient. That’s how delusions fester. I speak from experience, it’s how one loses their grip on where they’re at, it’s exactly how they begin to overvalue themselves because six months, a year, two plus years earlier someone whispered into their ear “you’ll be great someday”. Few manage to live in the present, few manage to keep themselves focused solely on the present. It’s scary to do so and it's beyond easy to get swept up in what could be, it’s your imagination dictating possibility after possibility without any means to make those fantasies mean something - fantasies about who you want to be, the life you want to have, the job, the home, the partner, the daily habits, the experiences. I’m sure many wish they were merely daydreamers instead of being someone trying to escape into their own psyche just to avoid having to face reality. It’s comforting. Comforting to imagine a different world, a different life. Maybe it’s a world, a life you’ve already experienced, nostalgia is one hell of a fucking drug. Perhaps you’re convincing yourself that, I don’t know, if you parade around just a little long believing yourself to be all that you think you are, that maybe your fortune will change and such efforts will be validated and will be justified. To Liz Karlson and anyone else it may concern, grit those teeth, fight back those tears as you come to realise that, as per usual, I’m right.
That’s why beating Liz for the championship that rests on her shoulder is so important to me right now.
That’s why being the APEX World Heavyweight Champion is a necessity that I will do anything to make mine and mine alone. I can only admire the consistency a lot of the people I know have achieved in their careers. For a rare breed of competitor, the generation before them does not matter and neither does the era they find themselves in because they manage to succeed and find ways to remain at the pinnacle, they find ways to remain present at the forefront of the minds of many. And well.. whilst I’m nowhere near that level yet, that’s the goal for me. To have a legacy to last until the final breaths of this company. To be at the top and never waver from such lofty heights. In an ideal world, I would’ve been given an opportunity to be the inaugural World Heavyweight Champion but for whatever reason, that moment just wasn’t meant to be mine. Does that irk me? A little. I don’t have any shame in admitting that I was a little upset over missing the first Pay-Per-View event APEX presented to the world, in fact, I feel comfortable enough to say that I was jealous of every person who got to compete at Inception. To a degree, I still feel that way. Yeah, I said it, I’m jealous. Six or so months ago I would’ve kept such a thing to myself, sure, I still do care a great amount about how I present myself to the world and what I let them see, I like ensuring that folk see the best I can be, but as my career progresses and I learn, I’m coming to terms with the fact that it’s okay to let the world see the good, the bad and the ugly. Out of all the standard emotions we all feel at one point or another during the course of our existence, the world of wrestling certainly enjoys weaponizing jealousy. Jealousy, insecurity, anger, bitterness, those emotions reside in us all. Realising that before allowing it to fester and transform into something awful is something I’m becoming better and better at, I want to allow these feelings to not suffocate me but to breathe new life into me.
Days where I repeatedly ask myself if I’m good enough or not exist, days where I question if I deserve to stand where I’ve stood before exist and days where I fail to see any quality I possess that could be deemed good exist but they’re becoming less and less frequent. This isn’t meant to be an advertisement for faking it until you make it but trust me, there’s methods to madness and there’s also methods to sadness. At the end of the day, when the storm clouds have passed, I know I'm good enough to be the one who cuts Liz Karlson’s reign short because I've already proved it. Countless occasions, countless times. I proved it three weeks ago, I proved it two weeks ago and I prove it every time I'm featured to wrestle on a show. So, yes. I'm jealous. I'm pissed off. I'm insecure. And that's a bad thing? I’d hate myself if I just idly sat by and watched anyone else take the spot I feel like I should be mine. There's a lot of overlap in the bitter and hungry. And I'll sing till the cows come home, it's never been anything personal, it usually never is when it comes to those I face, but god I am bitter. I've always been bitter. I'll always be bitter.
But I’m also.. upset. It’s no secret that physically, I can handle a lot. There’s plenty of evidence to support that and I actually believe that my body can tolerate far more abuse than my mind is capable of doing. It’s also no secret that in this business sometimes, shit just happens. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of some accidental but pretty nasty injury and to be truthful, I really do consider it a miracle that I’ve never been forced to sit on the side-lines for an extended period of time, fingers crossed I never will but that’s not the point right now. The point is, when I rewatched the footage from last week in a medical facility from my phone as a handful of personnel tended to my wounds and I quite literally felt like I was on fire, I didn’t know what to believe. Hours later as I got to properly look at and feel the damage, I didn’t know what to believe. Almost a week later, I do not know what to believe.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to believe that being sent into the pyro was nothing more than a freak accident. I want to believe that the regret Liz has displayed is genuine and not just a flimsy way to disguise fear because she knows that regardless of what her intentions were during out scrap that I’m not just going to say that it’s all okay and essentially let her get away with it, but I don’t know if I can do that. Perhaps I’m reading too much into things or perhaps it’s crystal clear and I just want to give her the benefit of the doubt but to say that she did what she did on purpose wouldn’t be the most far fetched thing. The one and only thing I can do to rid myself of uncertainty and make everything okay again is defeat Liz Karlson. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.
That’s what I want, that’s what I feel like I need.
There’s no right or wrong way to determine who “needs” a victory more simply because, like just about everything in life, it all comes down to being in the eye of the beholder. Some may think I don’t need this because of my past accomplishments but I don’t like to put focus on what I am doing in other companies, and most of the time, those who like to use “well you’ve done X, Y and Z in so and so therefore you don't need this opportunity” only use that comeback because they can never possibly understand what need means in my world. My accomplishments elsewhere have garnered me a degree of notoriety and a reputation I once could only dream of having but none of that satisfies me in the way it would others. I’m not interested in hanging my hat on what I’ve done and using that against others as a way to feel good about myself, it’s what I’m going to do next that has me permanently motivated. I wasn't given a shot, I earned one and now I’m coming for that World Championship, I’m coming for the moment and I’ve come to terms with being the one to make Liz’s stay in paradise short but sweet. Our history may not be extensive but it has helped me realise a great thing. A great thing about facing Liz Karlson, a great thing about Liz Karlson in general is that she has learned what a lot of people still need to brush up on. She knows who Alyssa Grace is, she knows what Alyssa Grace is and she understands how I operate and why I operate in the ways I do in a way many will never be able to understand. She knows the road she’s walking down won’t be easy. She knows it’s going to be tough as hell to remain where she currently is because it is going to be a challenge and then some. I respect the fact she’s determined to continue to pursue her goals to validate who she feels she is, even if that validation comes from surface sources while mine comes from within. I believe in myself infinitely more than the people who believe I’m going to fail. That’s where my motivation comes from, that’s the origin of my drive. If I’ve proven anything in this career of mine, it’s that long-term success is about sustaining. Through it all, I endure. Through everything, I sustain. I know I will get to where I need to be. To get there, I need to get through Liz. At Higher Power, the unstoppable force is going to meet the immovable object. I believe Liz believes in herself. I even believe she has the talent to one day get back to where she is now. I just know that she isn’t going to be able to do that against me, not now, not tomorrow, not next month, not ever. I won’t lose, and when the sun sets, know this, I will never settle for less.
This will not end well for Liz. That I don't assume. That I promise. Let the world crumble before me, let the saviour, the dreamer, the beast, the warrior, the compact combatant herself push me to my limits until I can take no more, it won't matter... because by the end of it all?
by MinaAizawa Thu Oct 13, 2022 3:46 am
Subject: I lived, bitch. 
