Because on September 17, 2006, Trish Stratus retired from professional wrestling. After the pay-per-view I sat outside under the clock tower, in the rain, with Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You" playing over and over on my iPod, and I bawled my eyes out. I wasn't crying just because Trish Stratus would no longer be on TV every Monday, or that the WWE Women's Division would never fully recover. No, I was crying for what the moment represented. It was that moment that made me realize that nothing lasts forever, and that our lives come in chapters. While in the back of my head I always knew I wasn't going to stay at Stout in my UW world forever, this event brought that concept out into the forefront and smacked me in the brain with it.
A year later, Trish Stratus is married, working on a comedy show on Canadian television, and preparing for a charity-based triathlon. The belt she historically held seven times is now held by Candice Michelle, a former fitness model who, like Stratus before her, was once underestimated and seen only as eye candy.
Meanwhile, UW-Stout may still have a self-professed diva whose flamboyance and sexuality does not define him as he transgresses various social structures, but that boy is no longer me, as I sit not in a Menomonie dorm room but in a messy apartment in Brooklyn, one that is funded by my mother because I am still unemployed. I am not doing well at my new school, emotionally and academically -- but I'm here, dammit, and with a little inspiration, I will get on my feet. I used to always say "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life", but in actuality, it's today. So from now on, I am going to wake up early so I make all my classes, I am going to study, I am going to job-hunt like job-hunting is my job, and at this moment, I am off to Manhattan to find a hair salon for white boys with limited incomes.
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