‘That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.’ – Emily Dickinson
That’s a quote that’s bounced around my head a lot throughout my life. Couldn’t tell you for the life of me where I heard it or when, but it’s something that has had me living life as much as possible and cranked up to an 11 out of 10 for a good portion of what I’ve already lived. But I suppose we’ll get to that. Following the example set by the man that kicked this all off, I’ll start with the moment I became a fan of Professional Wrestling. Two days after my birthday, I was watching television with my father, the man who basically turned me in the direction of every passion I had as a kid. I wasn’t really sure what was transpiring on the television as I was freshly 5 years old at the time, but I remember seeing a man wearing red tights with Texas flag hearts adorning them. The crowd went wild as the man walked toward the corner, stomped his foot repeatedly and then shoved that boot through the face of the champion. That show was the Royal Rumble, the match being “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels vs Sycho Sid for the World Wrestling Federation Championship. For the next year or so, I would walk around the house begging and pleading to watch whatever wrestling I could, making my action figures kick the hell out of each other and even fighting with my older brother despite the warning from the WWF not try their stunts at home. Things changed pretty quickly after that.
Once I turned 9, it was all boxing and football. I would boast that the name Delgado was going to be echoing in the stands either in a football field or in stadiums as they people chanted. It didn’t matter that I was growing up in a household where I was a middle child to parents who were both constantly working just make sure we had a roof, electricity and food. As long as I had my family I was happy and all of my dreams felt like they were going to come true. Over the next several years, despite being what most teachers and administrators would refer to as a social butterfly, fitting in with pretty much anyone I talked to, I would find myself frequently hanging with the kids that back in the mid to late 00’s would be considered the freaks and weirdos. It didn’t matter that my dyscalculia and dyslexia kept my grades from being stellar, it didn’t matter that I was still a fan of wrestling, that I would write poems that would later become songs for a band that never quite got out of the garage and was still kicking ass on a field; I made friends with a bond strong enough that I even still have some of them around to this day. It was around this time I went from being David to everyone and started being Mosh around my friends. As time passed the more opportunities came up and I was up for, well, anything. Started drinking at the ripe old age of thirteen, smoking cigarettes not long after, graduated to pot within the next couple of months; because we only live once, right? Fastforward to the day one of my dreams shatters into a million shards, one day on a football field. I see a guy running to take a cheep shot at my QB and so I walk into the path of the guy gunning for my friend. There wasn’t much I remember for a bit after that. I remember feeling a blinding pain, hearing something crunch and tear and then having a coach attempting to put my knee back into place. It took months for the damage to get to the extent it did, but because I waited so long to rehab my knee, the damage became permanent, my reliance on smokes and alcohol practically tripled and the depression began to envelop me as I attempted to train as a boxer, but just couldn’t get comfortable in the ring against the other guys who could dance around me as I hobbled, favoring my good knee because I was still scared my bad one was being held together by a hope and a dream. So, after losing the two things I aspired to, I turned to writing, art and selling one of the recreational activities I relied on so heavily to avoid thinking about what the next thing was going to be that I would focus on and dream of.
Things take kind of a funny turn after that. After all, what’s not comedic about an alcoholic fifteen year old that’s selling, foul mouthed and just angry at the world because aside from the fact that he can’t play football anymore and is too scared to actually attempt an in-ring boxing career in the next couple of years, his long term girlfriend practically flaunts that she’s cheating on him? At this point I’ve been arrested for vandalism, been dumped only to have to hang out with the girl still because she’s dating a friend and there’s not really a big shiny prize waiting for me at the end of the tunnel (high school). Then I met a girl we’ll name Snow because while I’ll be as honest about everything, I’m not gonna put the girl’s business out there. She was practically my life for the next eighteen months, it didn’t bother me too much that she was a bit looney, about a quarter bipolar and seriously messed up in the head with her own fleet of mac trucks hauling trailers filled to the brim with trauma. It didn’t matter, because I needed to stop all of my extracurriculars because I was sixteen, little to no prospects, with a kid on the way.
Dropped out of school, kept dealing, but entered the work force while I was working on getting my GED. Was dog ass tired working and saving up to be responsible and do the right thing only for my girl to miscarry and then later have it be revealed that the baby wasn’t mine in the first place. One ugly breakup, the crawl of shame back into high school and a new relationship later, I’m grinding my ass off to make all of my required credits before graduation even though I was two tests away from my GED. Yeah, thinking with the smaller head really had me doing some dumb stuff back then. Anyway, after getting engaged to my girlfriend, she was forced to move away with her father who lived almost 150 miles away; we’ll call this girl Anna. This one didn’t only crash, it burned my house down and took my family with it while I was out back having a smoke. Now, don’t take that literally, it’s a joke, but damn that was a nasty time. Lost a fiancée, another baby and half my damn friend group. Needless to say, I was depressed and had a terrible best friend at the time, so I was feeling low and attempted to do something about it in a very not healthy or smart way. I woke up in the hospital, managed to convince the doctors and therapists it was an accident and walked away with a new lease on life because after a lot of reflection with nobody there but the beep of the machines and the speckles on the ceiling of the room, I realized that even though the absence of other people in that room was a reflection of how I was feeling, it wasn’t bad enough to justify everything I was doing to myself and my life.
A year later I was 19, had already been drug and alcohol free for about a year and had quit selling and got a job with security at an amusement park. Then I started working security with my father, had to leave that job because of some dick head in management, then wound up working at Walmart not long after. The light that I didn’t see at the end of the tunnel was the writing that I had been doing all that time. What I hadn’t mentioned was that my works have been published in school journals, the school yearbook, a local paper and even in a literary magazine, though that last one was under a pseudonym. As long as I had the ability to help retell or even craft stories, I had purpose and was happy, no matter how soul-crushing the grind was at work. And even throughout all of the bad times, wrestling was there. It was more sporadically part of my life, sure, but it was always there to help distract me from the world, to help center me in that moment in time where we all as fans could collectively be part of something bigger than ourselves while watching these characters kick the crap out of each other. So, what about now? Now I’m married, still work at Walmart, but continue writing my own literary works as well as writing stories for some characters you are aware of such as the one named after myself, the Youngs, Morgan Mercer. All based loosely on real people, sure, but all who doesn’t find themselves adding at least some part of themselves into their characters or overall creative work? I remember thinking I would take a chance on responding to a post on social media with David Young (DY) and was invited to join this merry brand of pyschos, jokers and misfits and can honestly say that I’ve made some good friends, have had some fun and even found myself, in a way, having people cheer the name David Young (Delgado) despite my injuries, depression and chemical abuse. There have been SO many ups, a couple of downs and they’re all expected on this rollercoaster ride, but every experience here in Alpha Pro Wrestling have helped me grow, have taught me on my journey as a writer, creator and even as a streamer of my own e-fed; even to the point that though I feel no shame, I normally am closed off about a lot of my past, but am now putting some of the worst of my experiences and choices out there for you guys to read.
I know this is a lot and some of it could definitely get cut and still get the same message or point across, if I even had one. So, I want to thank anyone who makes it this far into this as even though Jon provided an amazing example of what we were doing with this Beyond series, I couldn’t really figure out where I was supposed to go with it, so I just kind of went everywhere with it because goddamn I had one hell of a ride trying to make the best of the quote I started this off with. And with that I just want to leave with; stay safe, be good to each other and always remember to be dynamic.
And since I usually sign these kinds of things with a joke: Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I’ve been Mosh Delgado and now, here’s Wonderwall.
