An Honest and Scary Thing to Say

Yesterday I learned that there’s such a thing as anti-natalism, which is where you genuinely think it’s immoral to create human life.

It started when this first TikTok came up on my FYP, and then I had to search this new-to-me term and seek out this second TikTok from a creator I follow who discusses secular spirituality and always has interesting takes.

I’m NOT saying that’s a belief system I hold, but I found it super fascinating.

And it’s always delightfully surprising to stumble upon huge areas of study or ways of life that I never knew existed before.

Like how cool is it that we’ll never know everything?!?!?

I also had the pleasure of watching Simone Biles officially compete her new piked double yurchenko at world championships and my heart soared with pride and love for this powerhouse of a lady.

She’s so much more than a gymnast to all of us at this point.

Her return to any competition after the controversy surrounding the last Olympics is something to be admired.

My favorite thing Instagram showed me yesterday was this audio snippet from an Olivia Rodrigo interview.

I’ve already told you guys how much I love her knew album in a previous Substack post.

And the internet comments have made it apparent that loads of people are tired of hearing about Olivia just like they were tired of hearing about the Barbie movie.

But the reason these things don’t die is because they’re insanely good and important pieces of art to a lot of people. (Like me!)

The album, GUTS, is totally beautiful and raw and intelligently written. It’s literal ear candy, especially to me as an elder millennial who grew up on emo and pop punk.

However, it’s true impact comes from the couple of very distinct themes, the latter of which I’ll dive into more personally.

Theme #1 seems to be all about relationship drama and hardship and navigating it all from a common place that a lot of us went through in our late teens.

As someone currently in a 10-year relationship that still feels so healthy and productive, those songs speak to a version of myself from a distant past.

The topics are familiar, but thankfully aren’t hitting a current emotional chord any longer.

BUT THE SECOND THEME!

On being a fucking person trying to be a certain way for everyone while shitting on yourself in the process, is still a sore spot for me, a woman twice Olivia’s age.

And I guess that’s the whole purpose of art.

To bring up the sore spots that you didn’t see as clearly or as loudly until they were poked at.

I spent my teens and early twenties trying to get to a place that would be objectively “successful” in terms of American society.

By the age of 25 was a graduate teaching and research assistant on track to become a university professor.

And it crushed my parents when I realized that wasn’t what I wanted.

It’s always a hard place to choose yourself while disappointing those you love most.

But then a few years later, that entrepreneurial track seemingly paid off while amassing lightweight online fame for being a figure competitor on YouTube.

It seemed like a sweet spot again.

However, it turns out that only feels good as long as you look good. And when I tried to gain weight to get healthy, the mostly male following who was paying my bills told me that wasn’t what they wanted.

Again, teaching me you can only choose yourself at the expense of upsetting others.

It sucks when those others are your parents, and it sucks when they are your financial livelihood.

The third resting place of the last decade is my current situation, which I’ve felt myself slowly becoming increasingly uncomfortable with as time goes on.

The combo of financial security while working from home and making my own schedule should be a dream in itself.

But I’ve been unsettled.

You probably haven’t been following all these endeavors, but over the past 3 years since the pandemic lockdowns I’ve tried:

• returning to YouTube to see if vlogging about my life as a gymnast to the old bodybuilding community would fill the void (it didn’t)
• restarted some fitness blogging because I know those are the articles that get the most reads from me
• started giving gymnastics advice on TikTok for a bit
• started a different newsletter than this which was Q&A based, and subsequently showed me that people still wanted to ask me for fitness advice

After a couple months of each, my insides tell me to drop it and run away.

If I take a look inward, every one of those things I created was going to perpetuate a cycle of creating things because I know people like them.

But once the feedback comes in that affirms my perceived value is solely in my athletic expertise (be that fitness or bodybuilding or gymnastics) I shut down.

Somewhere inside me, I knew that even though I’ve spent my life immersed in athletics, it would be a disservice to my soul to create another business (aka, prison) that completely ties me to constantly talking about it.

I like creating anonymous bodybuilding content for our team at work, but I hate when I have to appear it in.

While I enjoy logging my training and will never stop doing that, I sprint away from projects that might result in me being called a “fitness influencer” or “athletic coach” or “training instructor” or thing like that.

And with all that being true inside my head and my bones, it makes me feel bad.

My work colleagues (also some of my dearest friends) have devoted their lives to the sport of bodybuilding, and after 5 years of it I was done and I don’t like going to bodybuilding shows and I don’t like being tagged in bodybuilding content.

I can’t imagine that feels good to them.

My parents devoted their time and money to helping me have every athletic and academic opportunity they could afford. They’ll ask me when the fuck I’m going to settle down and be happy, but I still constantly tell them I’m so far from where I want to be.

So I digitally hide from the places where my past self lives.

I barely post on Instagram or YouTube, even though those are the places I have the biggest followings.

Instagram is where all the lifters know me. It’s where my high school friends, college friends and entire family hangs out.

I had to turn off comments, turn off story replies, and block almost everyone I know in real life from viewing my stories in order to become whatever I’m becoming next.

(If you’re close to me in real life and never see my IG stories, I’m so sorry if this is how you found out. It’s not you, it’s me.)

I stopped talking on TikTok, because it turns out most of the people who ask for gymnastics advice there are adolescent competitors wanting tips because they’re scared to talk to their coaches.

There is no way in hell I can continue to foster a long term audience of tweens in good conscience. That would be super weird and messy for everyone.

Soooo I guess this is how I found, and became in love with, Substack.

It feels deeper. It feels intimate. It feels lightweight secret because writing platforms are not exactly havens for meatheads or adolescent athletes.

It’s the only online space where I feel brave enough to write something like this.

To publicly say, “I know I’m becoming someone different than most people in my life want me to be, or are used to me being”.

I crave being seen as a whole person outside of my physical pursuits.

And arguably, the whole damn reason I love those physical pursuits is because they put me more in touch with who I am as a whole person anyway.

Training is a release the same way writing this is a release.

I’ll never stop lifting and flipping and documenting it all. Maybe I will happily write books or content about fitness or athletes again at some other time.

But for now, I’m happy to pour myself into something that is actually mine, that is actually themeless.

No specific niche or industry for now.

Just an open ended discussion with myself, hopefully along with you readers, to figure out how the hell to be ourselves.

Because it seems the more I care about other people, the harder it is to care about me.

And I hate that.

Signing off ❤️

xoxo,

AV