Blood, Sweat, Tears

The days are getting shorter. I also feel like they’re getting numbered.

I noticed the days were getting shorter last night, when I was sitting on my balcony immediately after getting back from karate, around 8:20 or so. The day had been unusually cool, dipping down into the upper 70s. A benign wall of clouds barricaded the western horizon, causing the sunset to be oddly blue. I took it in along with the bold, dark flavor of an Onyx cigar. The sky went from cyan to a Peter Jackson blue, and eventually to a mix of midnight blue and deep lavender by the time my cigar was finished.

The whole week had been slightly foreboding. I need a new job and a new apartment. There’s a good chance I might get let go if we have too many more days like this whole week has been. My lease is up in about a week, at which point my problem may blossom into a crisis.

Despite my prioritizing, I have missed just about every single karate event outside the regular training regimen since I moved here. Every clinic from Cedar Rapids to St. Louis to Nashville, the demonstration in Belton, the Show-Me State Games… try as I might, I can’t even seem to reconcile these events with my fairly light load of responsibilities. Too many scheduling conflicts. I took another drag from my cigar.

The Show-Me State Games, held in Columbia, were mostly geared towards TKD and MMA, although it was an open competition. My peer, Jake, went in for kumite, and a couple others went in for kata. The results were humorous—our dojo cleaned up, earning three gold medals. Or was it five? I don’t remember—I wasn’t there. But I did find it comforting to know that I’m part of that dojo. Also, I’ve been getting in a lot of sparring with Dean on the side, whether we’re in the field in front of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum or in his brother’s backyard in Brookside.

Due to the events of this summer, Sensei had postponed testing until September. Having already been postponed about four times already since November, this was getting almost humorous, too. But the reason for putting it off wasn’t only because of the time spent preparing for events. It actually ties into how they won all the competitions—Sensei doesn’t want us to be “that dojo,” that cares more about showmanship than absolutely solid technique. We are budoka.

Sensei’s admonishments and advice from the evening echoed numbly in my head until my cigar was finished.

His concerns for obtaining new recruits echoed my own concerns for other areas of my life—worrying about the next few months, considering how ominously things are going now. He joked that I had scared all the new people off, because we haven’t really had anyone new stay with it since I arrived eleven months ago.

I put my cigar out, wondering when my new gi would arrive in the mail.

”Or does she have a closet full of them like Superman?!”

The dissatisfaction with my church group, the hopelessness of the job situation, the desperate need to save a chunk of change per month by moving in with someone, the seemingly unrewarding fatigue of the training regimen… and the threat of being bankrupted if I lose this job without an ace-in-the-hole, the distinct feeling of working without a net…

September is going to be one hell of a month.