It was a bitter sweet morning, anticipating a meeting with Junior Mint (our former coach) and not quite expecting what the outcome would be. I was expecting the worst honestly so I got ready for work and headed out the door without calling to check up on Snickers at his meeting. That's when Snickers called me.
He had gone to UP Boxing Club alone, to talk to Junior Mint about the rights to his boxing license and to ask that Junior Mint give them up. When a boxer signs with a coach the contract remains for five years after which they can resign and continue the contract or end it. I just finished my five year pro contract with Junior Mint and consequently had to give up fights while I waited it out. Snickers has about a year left on his contract and he doesn't want to wait anymore. He wants to fight and he's been offered a fight in Japan.
When I walked out the door, anticipating to make my own way to Hulk's, Snickers called to tell me that he'd be picking me up. "I just finished the UP meeting" he told me and with that I eagerly anticipated lots of juicy details.
I don't get it. The meeting was rather civil. They talked, they shook hands and that was about it. But when I sat down with Junior Mint to tell him I was leaving him and the club, over a year ago, he lashed out at me with nasty words, telling me to go back to Canada. I left the meeting in tears and feeling like I had just had the nastiest breakup with a boyfriend. Honestly, I still haven't recovered from it, I know this. I know it in the fact that I can't help but mumble and grumble when I pass by the club. Some days I can't even bring myself to even pass by it let alone look at that side of the road when I do pass it. It's still very much a open wound.
Junior Mint was my former coach. He was the closest person to me for a good chunk of my years here in Korea and we've pretty much have touched bases on everything in and out of the ring. From discussions about footwork and training schedules to guys and music I like, and my mother's death, no issue has really been untouched between us. He's seen me loaded up on layers for winter training to practically naked for weigh-ins. He's seen basically all of me -- physically, mentally and emotionally. I've never shared so many layers of myself with anyone like I have with him.
He was in my life for seven years and then he just wasn't.
I'm repeating myself here from previous posts about this but I just never imagined it'd ever get to this point. When we told him on December 26, 2012 that we're leaving UP Boxing Club to make Hulk's, he made it quite clear that he was cutting us off. And just like that we were cut off.
Correction, I was cut off.
Since December 2012, we have run into him a few times. Snickers saw him walking past our club once so he called out to him, telling him to come inside. Junior Mint refused to and then he took off before I could change my shoes and see him. I then saw him at two different boxing tournaments. At one tournament, he simply looked past me and at the other he practically took me out when he walked past me and seemingly collided into my shoulder on purpose. He's yet to come to see our club despite the fact that his club is but a short ten minute walk, if that, down the street.
Snickers was not nearly as close to Junior Mint as I was and it was because of me that Snickers joined our UP team in the first place. After the nasty stunt Snickers' former coach pulled, I made him fire him on the spot and join UP. Snickers never had to buy out his contract with his former coach on account of the reason why we fired him -- he had given KBC Snickers' Super Light Champion belt back, insisting that Snickers had quit boxing when actually he was on his honeymoon. Ya,... don't even get me started on that coach!!!
I know Junior Mint never thought I'd actually leave him, I didn't think I'd ever leave too but I did. The opportunity arose for me to start my own boxing club and it was just too great of a dream come true to not jump on. I miss Junior Mint a lot, I really do. Training with Snickers as my coach is about a billion times more stressful than I ever imagined and Junior Mint was always there for me to vent about things after training. I can't complain to Snickers about not wanting kids, that was Junior Mint and my thing. He was just as anti-kids as I was. He used to always tell me that he was going to make me a Kim and we use to joke that we're going to grow old, single and childless together. Well, I'm a Kim now but not because of him -- I married Snickers and added his name to mine.
I started this post saying that it was a bittersweet morning and it surely was. And it's strange to say this but I was just as happy as I was sad hearing that we are officially and legally free from Junior Mint. I anticipated this day for well over a year now, I knew it'd come but it was so wild that it was finally here. I suppose in a way I just never expected it to happen; surely I didn't expect it to go as smoothly as it had. Perhaps in a way I wanted him to make a stink about it, fight us on it -- fight for us, fight for me. There was no fight. Instead, there was a friendly handshake and then it was all over. Not exactly the closure I anticipated and maybe not the closure that will do it for me. I was happy to hear he asked about me. He noted that he too will be going to the tournament this Sunday so I'm very eager to see him and see how he reacts to me. Definitely going to wear my new brown suede boots for that! I want nothing more than to just upper cut him and tell him to snap out of this spat of his. I would love to just go back to the way things were between us but I can't. I can't because he's made it clear he doesn't want to. At this point I don't even care for an apology, I think we both did wrong. I just want the Junior Mint I used to adore to be back in my life. I made a lot of sacrifices in making Hulk's but I never though Junior Mint would become one of them. I refuse to accept this.
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