EPISODE 4 SIGN

Returning to Ireland after my blissful New York summer, I had gained a significant amount of confidence, which made my transition back to college easy. I knew I had Chicago just around the corner, but in the meantime I was going to immerse myself in Dublin life and getting better at this acting thing.

You know when you get caught cheating and the teacher says, “You’re only cheating yourself”? That never resonated with me, because I didn’t care if I was good at trigonometry or whatever. Acting, however, was different. I wanted to make sure it got all of my attention.

I even got myself a job in a little family-owned health food store across from the college. Learning about nutrition on my downtime from a health and wellness perspective as opposed to a physical perspective did wonders in rehabilitating my eating disorder. Of course it didn’t cure it completely, but between finding a new interest in acting to fixate on and prioritizing how I felt over how I looked, I was making progress.

Five minutes from the college was my gym, though calling it a gym seems reductive. This was my safe haven, my hangout spot, my social scene. It may not have looked like much, a giant warehouse hidden in a back alley on the outskirts of the city. The cold white brick walls, fluorescent lights, and extremely basic equipment were all filthy but full of personality and grit, inviting only the most hard-core to train there.

Two such hard-core legends were Rachel Walker and Joey Cabray. I had known them from my wrestling days. Joey was a wrestler (one of those aforementioned IWW eejits) but was also a brilliant promoter. He had started a company called American Wrestling Rampage, which was selling out buildings all over Europe, bringing life to the Irish wrestling community. Rachel was his stunning girlfriend who had fallen into the business by association and was a natural in the ring. She was also the coolest woman I had ever met, and even though I was long since gone from wrestling, we quickly became the best of friends, training together daily, having sleepovers, baking healthy treats like a couple of old ladies.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this friendship was going to change my life forever.

Two weeks before I had to go to Chicago, my grandmother felt desperately ill. She was taken into the hospital and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

I was in the room when the doctors offered her chemotherapy. “There’s no point in prolonging the inevitable,” she said. “I’ve had a good life.” It was the most serene I had ever seen her.

As a child I remembered her being the fussy Catholic lady who would worry about everything and never let us do anything. On her deathbed, surrounded by her five children and thirteen grandchildren, she had found peace. And as she was a committed believer in a better life after this one, there was no fear.

Though never one to leave the party early, she didn’t want to miss out on these last moments. So every time we thought she was about to pass on to the next realm, she’d open one eye to see who was still in the room.

At first, we all sat around crying at the thought of losing her.

Then we started laughing that she was here for the attention, cracking jokes to deal with the grief.

But someone had to shut this party down, so I had a decision to make: Do I go to Chicago or wait around for, well, the inevitable?

My family urged me to go, but I wanted to be there, for her, for my mom, for all of them.

I had always felt like the black sheep of the family. The problem child, the rebel, the renegade. I had caused my grandma so much heartache and disappointment in her life through my rebellious teenage years and unconventional career path in young adulthood. However, in the last few years, I had grown and matured, bringing us closer together, and I’d make sure to bring her out for coffee and chocolates whenever I could.

I held her hand, knowing that I’d never get to do this again. “I’m sorry for everything, Grandma. I know I was difficult. I’ll try to be better.”

“You were always very spirited; I hope all your dreams come true” were the last words she said to me before I left the hospital, a mess, about to take the next step in making those dreams come true, whatever they were now.

I landed in Chicago the following day. It was January 2011 and the Midwest winter cut through my bones. Life goes on.

When I woke up the next morning, my mom told me my grandmother had passed away peacefully that night.

Her last words were “I’m going to miss Becky.”

I’d miss her too.

Columbia College was like something I had seen on an American TV show. A sprawling campus, spread out across downtown with film and TV students mingling among the theatre folk and everyone collaborating on different projects.

They actually ran plays during the year that you could audition for. Audition for!!!!! Fuck you, Cow number 2, I was gonna earn my roles.

The creativity, the trial and error, this was something I wanted to be a part of. Damn right I left my good, pensionable job for this. For the first time in my life I was getting straight A’s.

With all this newfound tenacity, I decided to email one of the promotions I used to work for, SHIMMER in Chicago during my indie wrestling days. Not only did I work for them, but I had no-showed two events when I was in my darkest of times, five years previous.

I was possessed by an urge to make things right with everyone. Maybe it was the loss of my grandma; maybe it was my Catholic guilt; maybe it was a feeling of security in my current path without fear I’d be lured back to the wrestling ring.

Still, I wanted a sliding-doors moment, if you will, a chance to see what might have become of me if I had stayed, but I wasn’t even sure if the promoter, Dave Prazak, would respond. I may have torched that bridge to the ground.

To my shock, he responded enthusiastically that he’d love to have me. One thing about the wrestling business is it has the tendency to forgive. For example, Madusa was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame even after famously throwing her WWE women’s title in the trash live on WCW television, WWE’s greatest competition.

When I got to the Berwyn Eagles hall, the old stomping grounds for a young Rebecca Knox, the darkness of the interior gave me some solace as I crept in.

Maybe no one will notice me till showtime.

A younger me once walked into this musky old hall with the presence of a rock star. Twenty-four-year-old me was painfully aware I had become an outsider and was nervous how the other women would react to me. Why did I think this would be a good idea? I asked myself. As I was contemplating turning around and leaving before anyone saw me, no-showing for a third time, I ran straight into Sweet Saraya.

She jumped and yelled an octave higher than I would have liked, “What the fuck happened to you?” as she punched me on the arm with force. For such a skinny little thing, she was powerful.

I paused, not sure how to articulate the haze that had been my life over the past five years. She wasn’t being hostile. There was even a smile on her face.

“We were all worried about you.”

They cared. Shit. That stung even more than if they did hate me.

I felt ashamed and regretfully loved.

She grabbed me and gave me a big hug before her daughter, Saraya, came running up. She was all grown up from the last time I had seen her, an absolute stunner with an undeniable charisma about her. She was as friendly as she had been five years previous. It was obvious WWE was going to sign her as soon as they met her.

The locker room hosted a lot of familiar faces. Some had gotten jaded with wrestling and talked bitterly about the industry.

I liked talking to them the most. Their bitterness affirmed my choice to leave and reassured me that I had taken the right path, no matter how many years I had spent agonizing over it.

One of my strongest previous rivals had become almost skeletal; I had no idea how she could take a bump without dispersing into dust. I saw the pain of her eating disorder, but my fucked-up mind was envious of her abs.

The banter was strong among most of the girls, which made me feel like an imposter. I was the ghost of wrestling past, but like a really meek ghost who was too scared to say boo.

For the next two nights, I was the British girls’ manager and got up to my usual shenanigans of taunting the crowd and making an ever-living show of myself. The crowd remembered me. They embraced me and were happy I returned. I enjoyed being back in front of them, but something was missing. They cheered me because of an old fondness for who I was, but I was no longer that person, and I wasn’t doing what they came to see. I was putting on a show, but without committing my body, mind, and soul to the performance.

When the weekend was over, I felt like that was it. That I had gone back and had gotten a taste of what it was like. Only it didn’t have the same flavor it once had.

After years of wondering what life would have been like if I had stayed, it seemed like I had my answer. I would have become one of the bitter ones.

Even though my time in the SHIMMER locker room felt like I was in Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 movie, The Wrestler, by the time I returned to Dublin for my last year of college, along came that nagging feeling once again: Maybe you should go back to wrestling. You have things you haven’t done yet.

I thought I was done with you! You saw what that locker room was like; you didn’t belong there anymore.

You have unfinished business.

It’s over, goddamn it.

Is it?

I don’t know!!!!!

Why was this so damn confusing?!

A few weeks later, I cycled into town to meet Fergal, who was back from Japan for a few weeks. Though we had broken up many years ago and he had lived in Japan nearly the entire time after our relationship ended, we had remained close friends who were there for each other through thick and thin. He had become one of New Japan’s biggest stars, but he was still the same grounded lad I met in that school gym a decade earlier.

We caught up on life; we walked around the shops; we sat down for lunch.

“You doing good?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m doing great. I love college; only a few more months and I’m done. But can I be honest about something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Part of me feels like I have unfinished business in wrestling. Like I’ve never been fully able to let it go.”

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Jesus, is that all? Fuck. Well. Look. If you really feel like this is something you want to do, go back now, because I don’t want to be sitting here with you in ten years’ time and you say the same thing. Only then it’ll be too late.”

I let that sink in. Swooshed it around my skull and then let it go. Maybe he was right. But I didn’t have time to think about it right now.

It was coming to the end of the school year and I had a lot of work to do. Between plays and thesis, I could hardly squeeze a workout in.

On a break from rehearsals one day at the gym, I ran into Rachel, who was on her way out. “Hey, can I talk to you a second?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I got a WWE tryout.”

It whacked me like a heart punch. But not an entirely bad one. Just one that jars you and lets you know you’re feeling things.

“Oh, wow! That’s amazing.” I was genuinely delighted for her, with only a twinge of envy.

“Would you have any advice for me?”

“Gosh, it’s been a while, but what are you worried about?” I didn’t know what I could really offer anymore.

“Character stuff, I suppose,” she responded, making me feel a little more useful. Maybe I had picked up a thing or two in acting school that could help her.

“I’d love to sit down and chat, but I have to fly through this workout. Maybe we can get a coffee tomorrow?”

“That sounds great!”

During my workout I was filled with so many emotions. Excitement for her. Regret for what could have been. My brain spiraled with make-believe scenarios.

But I had my thing. I was acting. I had plans to move back to New York.

Rachel already had it in the bag. She was the total package. Beautiful, athletic, personable, a body that was ripped, jacked, and curvy in perfect balance. She didn’t need my help.

We sat down and talked about ideas. I could feel myself lighting up talking about the business and all the possibilities that lay ahead for her. We went as far as picking new wrestling names for her. Why could I be so excited for her future in wrestling but was convinced mine would be so bleak?

She of course aced the tryout and earned herself a spot in NXT, as if there could be any doubt.

A few weeks later, I saw Joe working out like a madman.

“Looking swole, Joe,” I encouraged him.

“I got a WWE tryout, so tryna get as lean as possible.”

“Oh, man, that’s so awesome.” It really was. No one deserved it more than Joe. He loved it, worked his ass off for it, and had an amazing brain for it.

But there were those mixed feelings again.

Stop it! I’d tell myself. You’ve got your plan. You get your degree. Then you’ll go back to New York and you pursue acting. Like a goddamn adult. None of this kid wrestling shit.

Ultimately, Joe landed a spot in NXT too.

This was great! I’d have friends to visit when I went to America. They’d be in Florida with NXT; I’d be in New York. They would be together.

Good for them. Good for me. Good for us.

I was happy for them. I wasn’t jealous at all.

I lied to myself.