Our Violin

Sad faced keys look up at me, as my fingers infect them with my thoughts.  Keys that stretch into violin strings that echo loudly throughout the Dark Orchestra, as I play with my head down and Shankle to my side.  Some days I wish I would have never met him, and other days I am thankful for his leading hand guiding me into this fucked up life.  A man that can barely walk, or hardly talk from the mind games that cheer and boo loudly in his science project head.  A still calm face is what we see, but behind the blinds of piercing lion killer eyes, holds a storm that can create much force into the bar when needed.  Turning off this storm is never possible. Driving home can leave you drenched and gasping for air.  Sleeping is training of its own, as this sport has its side effects. Side effects that will leave you rocking back and forth in the chair you sleep in because a bed hurts your broken neck and back.  Rocking because your body has been trained to move.  Rocking to the image of a white wall that might as well be the property of a hospital.  Knee wraps are like coffee, they help dull the pain.  Walking has come harder over the years, and my mind seems to play tricks on me as I catch myself drooling while picking out cereal in the store.  Join me on YouTube, but then leave me.  Turn off the computer and go, leave me with me, a person I do not know off the platform. Leave me as I am stuck in this video forever.  No one is rooting for me while driving home, this is when depression kicks in.  I smile when training, I smile when you watch the live feed, I welcome you with open arms, but I am sad to see you go.  I am fucken depressed once you leave and I can't figure out how to pump my own car full of gas.  I am lost when I am not a weightlifter. I am lost when I have to take a driving test that I still cannot pass.  I am a fucken loser, don't you see?  I'm only special on the platform, on YouTube, or at a meet.  I am alive and well when lifting, but sleeping is a nightmare.  How can I be so confident on the platform, but so insecure off?  You leave me everyday like my dad left me, like my step mom left me, and my step sisters that I used to call family.  Family has left me like someday this sport will, and then what?

Shankle sits across from me, still there, still with me.  Thank God for my weightlifting family, a cult that makes me feel needed, necessary, and valued.  Nothing else has brought me so much passion.  I spent many nights sleeping on a bench outside living homeless, thinking where I would be now.  Who knew I would be here.  Who knew the path I took in life would lead me to this.  Life is funny that way.  The talking to myself issue has put me in the chair facing a therapist.  Ideas that run through my head have to be dealt with and organized.  I see technique that confuses most coaches, and sometimes myself.  I dig too deep into the philosophy of weightlifting, finding things that shouldn't be found.  I am falling deeper into a state of wanderlust and ideas that I am afraid might take me prisoner for good one day.  I am still getting to know this new Jon North, a man that lights his fire and cooks his dinner behind the screen of youtube.  A puppet that Pendlay pulls the strings on.  A freak with coffee that some despise and hate.  A mental head case that if directed properly can work in your blessing.  What most don't know is the influence my father has had on me, good and bad.  Let's just say my mind works and has been trained from a very, very young age to see situations and move them without anyone knowing.  Rooms spin while my head stays facing straight.  Couches and chairs move from one end of the room to the other.  My next move is crucial, what shall I do?  Stop Jon! Just be you the people very close to me say!  But how, when all I know is the Godfather lines and techniques my father drilled into me, while dumping me into social situations where they were looked at win or lose, and then discussed in depth afterwords.  Rave parties, high on ecstasy when I was 12, only to sharpen up my social skills and adapt to life experiences.  I might as well have been in school. A confused kid with an innocent heart, but scared by the talent of seeing situations not just people.  I have come a long way in finding myself, and just being me, even though it has been a very hard challenge to shut that side of my mind off, and turn on the side of pure reactions and feelings.  Yes we all have skeletons, these are just a few of mine that I don't mind sharing.  I find this subject fascinating.  My dad is a genius.  But his genius he took too far, his so called powers are what killed him in the end.  In the end his own strategies turned upon himself and locked him away in his own mind.  The minute he used his powers on his own family, is the day the muddy bank gave way, and crashed into a million pieces.  The first steps in breaking this curse is admitting and talking about the curse, then I will find who I really am.    

40 Kilos to 166 Kilos has taught me a lot.  Understanding that training with pain is okay, and losing is part of winning.  This blog is far from motivational, more of a diary on journey within ourselves and what great things come of sports.  A blog on how a coach can change not only your technique, but life.  How someone like Shankle took a chance with me when no one else would.  Yes, I can't read nor do math.  Yes, I can't pass a simple driving test, nor understand how to work an ATM, but I do know how to slam bars and kill PR's.  Thank you for listening to my violin.

Weightlifting 2016