pugil pixels's blog

March 22nd sits on my calendar like a wound. Nine days from now, I will either stand in a ring or I won't. Both possibilities terrify me equally. The mere thought of the fight turns my stomach, a physical revulsion that arrives each morning before I even open my eyes. Nausea has become as much a part of my training regimen as roadwork and padwork.

I no longer know if I'm afraid of the fight or afraid of admitting I don't want it. The distinction matters less each day. What remains constant is the isolation—a self-imposed quarantine that has become its own punishment.

The physical evidence accumulates: wrapped knuckles, leaner physique, calculated meals. I've perfected the science of preparation. My body knows what to do. It's the rest of me that falters.

Online, I am invisible. I leave no posts about training, no evidence of the hours spent in the gym, no digital footprint of this consuming pursuit. I've chosen to disappear rather than document. This absence is its own kind of performance—a careful curation of nothingness where something significant exists. To hide strength from an audience that wouldn't care anyway—this becomes a particular kind of honesty. But without any witnesses at all, does the strength even matter?

"You're ready," my coach says, and I nod as if I agree. He sees what I allow: the improved technique, the increased speed, the weight hitting exactly where it should. He doesn't see what follows—the return to an empty apartment, the silence broken only by my breath, the conversations I rehearse with my reflection in the mirror. As a freelance writer, my days have no fixed structure, just endless hours of solitude punctuated only by the morning training session. The words I craft for others flow easily; the words I need for myself remain trapped. How do you tell someone whose job is to make you strong that sometimes the thought of being strong for twenty-three more hours until you see them again feels impossible?

I haven't told my former partner about the fight—the one person who understands this world completely, who built it alongside me. This friendship has survived a decade, the founding and closure of our boxing gym in Singapore, the shared triumphs and defeats in the ring. We coached and cornered each other through every match—his voice was the only one I could ever truly hear through the roar of the crowd. We built something together from nothing, pouring ourselves into a dream that eventually ended under the pressures of rising costs.

Now, boxing exists between us only as nostalgia—memories of the gym we once owned, my occasional philosophical reflections on why it failed. I've excised all mention of current training from our conversations as if that chapter of my life closed alongside our business. Our friendship remains strong, our finances intact, but the day-to-day rhythm of training together has been replaced by something different—calls and messages that skirt around the fact that I'm still fighting and he doesn't know.

The upcoming fight exists in a separate universe, one where our shared history continues uninterrupted by my solitary pursuits. This silence has become more exhausting than any training regimen. I'm certain that someone reading this will tell them about my secret fight, eager to inject drama into our carefully maintained peace. There's always someone who believes they're helping by forcing confrontations. They'll collapse the distance I've worked so hard to maintain, unaware that some revelations benefit no one.

I don't even spar in the gym anymore. Haven't since my last fight two years ago, around when the gym went into crisis. The fear isn't of pain or defeat—it's of reality itself, of puncturing this alternate universe I've constructed where fighting remains theoretical. The bags don't hit back. The mitts don't surprise you. Shadowboxing only attacks your reflection. The familiar rhythm of preparation without the culmination of an actual fight became a comfortable limbo, a way to maintain the identity without testing its limits. But this time is different. This time, someone is waiting on the other side of the ring.

What terrifies me most isn't the fight but the void surrounding it: no one to witness, no one to care. I exist in perfect isolation—an only child whose parents cut ties over amateur boxing. No therapist. No confidant. No safety net. Just me and thoughts that circle like vultures.

The darkness comes in waves. Some nights, I stare at the ceiling, wondering if disappearing would matter to anyone at all. The shower becomes a confessional booth and audience in one—the only place I speak aloud to remember my own voice. The loneliness is physical, a weight pressing on my chest until breathing becomes deliberate.

I tell myself this isolation is freedom. That's a lie. It's abandonment—some by choice, some by circumstance, all absolute in effect. The irony cuts deep: fighting demands presence, yet I've buried it in silence. I've built my life around keeping secrets. This one just bleeds more than most.

Why fight? The question haunts me when empty surrounds me, and only my reflection remains. I fight to feel something real, something undeniable. That perfect cross-counter years ago—the moment doubt vanished, and I existed without question. That clarity. It comes rarely now.

They don't know their absence might break me. How do you tell someone they're the foundation of your courage? The words stick in my throat, too needy, too raw. So, I say nothing and hope I don't collapse when the hypothetical bell rings.

The technique is improving. My coach nods at my form, though we both know it's far from perfect. But beneath whatever precision I've managed is a trembling that starts in my core and radiates outward. Not the adrenaline shake of pre-fight nerves, but something deeper—the vibration of a lie sustained too long, of vulnerability denied until it transforms into something unrecognizable.

Nine days remain. Each morning I wake and catalog the sensations in my body before memory returns: the weight of my hands, the expansion of my lungs, the beating of my heart. For a few seconds, I exist without the burden of decision. Then I remember, and the weight returns.

I might stand in that ring on March 22nd. Or I might not. The truth shifts hourly. Sometimes, I think I can do it. Most times I don't. Last night, I woke at 3 AM, my heart pounding so hard I thought something was wrong with me. Just panic. Again.

There are times I almost buy my own bullshit—yeah, I'm tough enough, I've got the discipline. Then reality crashes in, and I'm lost again—staring at the ceiling, completely fucking clueless about why I'm putting myself through any of this. I find myself scrolling past names on my phone, people I might actually trust, but I freeze up. I'm paralyzed. They'd only see weakness and label me a coward who still hasn't "gotten better." They all think I overcame this shit years ago. How could I admit I'm still drowning in the same emotional quicksand they thought I'd escaped?

I am aware, with a clarity that cuts, that I am a coward. A loser. Someone who talks about fighting but flinches from conflict. The kind of person who would rather suffer in silence than risk rejection. I've constructed elaborate justifications, philosophical frameworks, training schedules—all to avoid facing this simple truth: when it matters, I retreat.

I don't know what version of myself will show up nine days from now. I'd like to think it will be someone braver than I feel. Someone who can stand alone. But right now, I'm just someone sitting on the floor of a serviced apartment, writing words no one will read, feeling sick about a fight no one will witness, wondering if, this time, fear wins again.

Maybe this is what it all comes down to—not courage or cowardice, but just the recognition that I'm tired of pretending. Tired of the silence. Tired of carrying this alone. Without my former partner in my corner, the fight means confronting not just an opponent but an identity I've been avoiding: a fighter who fights alone. But recognition doesn't equal action. Seeing the mess I've made doesn't mean I have the first clue how to clean it up.

The clock keeps ticking toward a moment I both dread and need. I wish I had some clarity to offer, some resolution that makes sense of all this. I don't. Just questions that echo in empty rooms and the bitter taste of fear each morning when I wake.
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This essay ventures into darker, more vulnerable territory than my previous work. With my last piece achieving a 78% approval rating, I'm aware this raw exploration of fear and isolation may resonate differently. If you connected with these thoughts or found value in this unfiltered glimpse into struggle, you can find more of my writing at PugilPixels. If not—and I expect more thumbs down this time—I appreciate your honesty. The metrics matter less to me than knowing these words reached someone somewhere.