�Be what you are, bury what you are not.�  Mrs. Bentley�s late husband�s statement shuffled through her seventy two-year old mind in Ray Bradbury�s novel, Dandelion Wine.  I found refuge in that statement recently.

I grew up with a packrat.  Papers, papers everywhere.  Newspapers, magazines, article clippings, coupons, receipts, files upon files upon files stuffed in every nook and cranny.  Boxes piled high of stuff that hadn�t seen the light of day since warm ups and Madonna bracelets were in style.  There wasn�t a single drawer that could have been found empty.  I think my mother got a bit of this trait from her grandfather, and I in turn got a bit of it from her.

I had recently opened a photograph box to find something.  I don�t even remember what, but next thing I knew, photos wormed their way across the bed, notes leapt out of the box, and old competition buttons jumped into my hands.  A total mess was strewn all over my rumpled comforter, and I sat staring at the buttons in my hand.  56, 72, 179, 98 . . .  The numbers rang on and on, and for the life of me, I couldn�t figure out why I hadn�t just tossed these things into the trash and moved on.  What in the world was I holding onto?

�You�re saving cocoons.�  Another of Mr. Bentley�s verbal gifts to his wife, she chewed on the thought while rummaging through her own buried treasures of memories long gone.  An old woman desperately trying to prove to little girls that she had actually once been young, she eventually discovered late that evening that she was �only, here, now�the present.�  She wasn�t �the dates, or the ink, or the paper� of the letters and photos that hung limp and lifeless in her hands.  She was Mrs. Bentley.  Seventy two.  Living alone.  Drinking tea.  Meandering through the remaining years of her life.

Those buttons still sat in my hands, practically mocking me.  They seemed to dare me to throw them out.  Needless to say, I tossed them and the pictures back into the box and shoved the box back onto the shelf along with all the pictures.  I still haven�t thrown them out.  But I think I will today.

See, Mr. Bentley really was a wise man:

�My dear, you never will understand time, will you?  You�re always trying to be the things you were, instead of the person you are tonight.  Why do you save those ticket stubs and theater programs?  They�ll only hurt you later.  Throw them away, my dear. . . .  It won�t work, . . . .  No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now.  Time hypnotizes.  When you�re nine, you think you�ve always been nine years old and will always be.  When you�re thirty it seems you�ve always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life.  And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy.  You�re in the present, you�re trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen.�

I recently placed 12^th at the 2004 Junior Nationals.  And the button I wore that day is still keeping my two piece suit company in its plastic bag.  That�s not a memory I care to stuff into a box and pull out when I�m seventy two like Mrs. Bentley.  I�d rather build upon the experience, learn what went wrong, figure out if I can fix it, and make a plan for next year.

I won�t be competing in the 2004 Figure Nationals; that was a very tough decision to make.  But if life is made up of snapshots of memories, then haven�t I procured enough competition photos, enough numbers to demonstrate that I really was just one of many?  How about some real life ones?  How about shaking things up a bit, throwing a few things out, and moving into a new direction?  How about being me and being happy with me without hearing of what is wrong with my body?  Thus, I have given myself one year before stepping on stage again.  I plan to refine my physique:  increase the size of my shoulders, thicken up and widen my back, search for those deep grooves and cuts of my quads, train my lower abdomen until it screams for mercy.  And then I�ll unveil next summer.  And you might be surprised as to which stage I step upon and whether footwear adorns my feet.  All I can say is stay tuned.

And so, no new competition buttons will be placed into my memory box for quite some time.  Instead, I think some belated spring cleaning might be in order.  I have other boxes to fill . . . like the present, like the future.  After all, I have a new now to create.

I leave you with one question:  What is your now?

Planned Appearances and Competitions for 2004

Competition: Figure Nationals (held with Team Universe) Date: August 6th and 7th Location: New York, NY.  Making an appearance to support my friends and to do photo shoots.

Competition: Heart of Texas Date: October 1st and 2nd Location: Plano, TX. Making an appearance to support fellow competitors.

Competition: The Olympia Date: October 29th and 30th Location: Las Vegas, NV.  Making an appearance at the CytoSport booth and to support two of my very good friends and emotional supporters, Dina Al Sabah and Zena Collins, along with the other competitors. 

Competition: Bodybuilding and Fitness Nationals Date: November 19th and 20th Location: Dallas, TX.  Making an appearance to support fellow competitors.