Solcana blog

The last day of school was always a difficult one for me. Amid the exchange of AIM screen names and promises to keep in touch over the summer, there was that daunting task: cleaning out my locker at the end of the day. In fifth grade, I found the remote control to the family TV that was missing since winter. In high school, I remembered that I forgot about all those bag lunches that I didn’t eat.

And now, it’s time for me to clean out my little cubby at Solcana. But like all good last weeks of school, I got to go on a field trip and spend a quality day with my classmates. Last weekend, I competed in the Thanksgiving Throwdown at Crossfit Rigor. And if you remember from Problem 3: Clothes, that is the same space and same competition where I first wore a crop top. So basically, I was swirling with nostalgia.

I showed up after Tamra and Chris competed in the Masters division, and about an hour before Kaitlin and I had to start. So we did exactly what high school Spencer would do on the last day of school, go to Chipotle in a strip mall to celebrate. And while the four of us and Becky sat down to eat our burrito bowls, I thought about telling everyone that I wouldn’t be coming to the gym for a while. And how I loved them all like a sister. And how I wanted them to have a great summer. But I decided to not damper the mood. To let us all shovel our faces with rice and chosen protein in peace.

The competition itself was fun, of course. Nothing incredible exciting, other than my partner Kaitlin completely annihilating the competition in the 3 rep max clean and jerk. After that, I had to do thrusters at the weight. It was amazing watching the faces of the men as Kaitlin kept loading the bar. I could tell, they didn’t think a couple of big queers could actually be as strong as we are. #solcanastrong

Oh, and then there was this really nice man trying to tell us that we could do a rope climb, if just we had the right form. We wanted to tell him, Honey, if Coach Hannah can’t teach us over the span of three years, it’s not gonna happen now, ten minutes before the buzzer starts.

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Part of me wants to make a yearbook and have all of you sign it. Being able to share my journey with you all for the past year has been so rewarding for me, so I hope that even just one of you got a little perspective from a big fat gay boy like me.

Although I will not be at Solcana for the next few months, I will still be writing. As I turn away from lifting for the moment, I turn to the root of my personal health journey: nutrition. In my absence at the gym, I will be working with our friend Lucia to better hone my relationship with food, with the intention of becoming more healthy on the inside.

So keep an eye out for that. I’ll be talking about some fun things like home fermentation, drinking salt water every morning, and shoving vegetables in my face before I’m late for work.

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That’s been my 27 problems. I’m 28 now, and I still don’t have all the solutions. But at least now, I have some.

Now, don’t ever change. My screen name is earmuffin89. If you see me online, message me! I’ll definitely miss you all.

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