My mother had two placentas and I was living off both of them. I was supposed to have a twin. When the doctor yanked me out, he said, “There’s a good chance this child will be quite strong.” This is the story my parents always told me, but I never really believed it.

In a moment, after I refasten the Velcro over my laces, I will stand up out of this folding chair. I will square my bulge in my singlet and good-luck tug each shoulder strap. And after I’ve counted the spectators in the bleachers (seventeen), I will ask Coach Hargraves to box my headgear. He will oblige. Then I will walk onto the maroon mat, enter the white circle, shake this Poor Richard’s hand, and when the referee lets me go, I will come after him with everything I have. Noise. And in the second it takes for me to hold the pin, I will hear something snap in his arm. This is like breathing.

You haven’t spent any time in North Dakota, but if you had, you’d know this time of year is useful for airing out your head. I will use three minutes outside in the parking lot to stand by a snow clump, watching for birds and settling down, thinking how it’s finally November and the season won’t be over until March, thinking about my weak, sweaty good-bye to the whole thing before it gets sucked inside me for good.

I once read about the idea of internal age in my Teams & Group Dynamics class. I got a C+ in that. Imagine: there’s a tight little peach-pit core inside you with a number carved into it, and that number is the age of your best self. Most of the time people whine about not being at or being past their internal age. Not me. I’m in my golden age.

I believe in wrestling, and I believe in the United States of America.

I am a motherfucking astronaut.