▶The Things We Leave Behind
“Who do you think you are?' That's the big one, isn't it? A flourishing life depends on how you answer that.” ~Robert Fulghum
The rain had been coming down for six hours when it finally hit me: I had no clue where I was.
I don't mean that in some deep, metaphorical way. I was just plain lost.
There are times when the idea of getting lost sounds sort of poetic. People write entire books about it. They talk about vanishing into a foreign city, tossing the map, and finding some profound inner truth while wandering past old churches and sipping coffee.
This wasn't that.
I was huddled under the tiny awning of a closed bakery somewhere on the outskirts of Rotterdam. I watched water pour through a gutter that looked like it had given up sometime in the last century. My jacket was soaked through, my phone was clinging to seventeen percent battery, and the taxi that dropped me off forty minutes ago was long gone. The address I was looking for didn't even seem to exist.
Across the street, some bikes were chained to a railing. Beyond them, there was just gray water meeting an equally gray sky. The Netherlands was beautiful, which was honestly the most annoying part of the whole situation. Even this miserable weather couldn't make it look ugly.
I pulled the folded paper from my pocket again. The ink was starting to run.
“Perfect,” I muttered, looking from the address to the buildings and back again. “Absolutely fucking perfect.”
“Talking to yourself is usually the first sign.”
The voice came from right behind me. I turned to see an old man standing in the bakery doorway. He looked to be in his seventies, maybe older, wearing dark trousers, slippers, and a sweater that looked like it had seen its fair share of history. His white hair was neatly combed back, and he had a face that looked like it couldn't care less about impressing anyone.
“I thought you were closed,” I said.
“We are.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I own it.”
I waited for more. He just stood there. “That doesn't really answer the question,” I added.
“It answers enough,” he replied.
For the first time since I'd landed in the country, I laughed. It wasn't much, just a bit of air through my nose, but it felt real. The old man looked at the paper in my hand.
“You are lost.”
“Yeah, I'm starting to catch on to that.”
“Where are you trying to go?”
I handed him the note. He unfolded it carefully, and his eyebrows shot up. He looked back at me.
“You walked here?”
“Taxi.”
“Did the driver hate you?”
“Seems like it.”
He pointed down the street. “This address is twenty kilometers away.”
I just stared at him. “You're kidding. Twenty?”
“Roughly.”
I looked back at the road. The rain seemed to pick up just to spite me. The old man stepped back inside. “Come.”
“I'm fine,” I said, though I clearly wasn't.
“You are wet, lost, and standing in the rain arguing with a seventy-eight-year-old man.”
“Seventy-eight?”
“Seventy-nine in November.”
“You look good,” I offered.
“Now you’re lying to a seventy-eight-year-old man.”
He disappeared into the shop. I stood there for a few more seconds before finally following him in. The place smelled like bread, even though the ovens were off. It surprised me. The lights were low, chairs were flipped onto tables, and the display cases were empty. One wall was covered in old black-and-white photos: families, weddings, and people standing in front of this very bakery decades ago.
He went behind the counter and started making coffee. “Sit.”
“I don't want to be a bother.”
“If you bothered me, I would have left you outside.”
Fair point. I sat. He put a cup in front of me. No fancy foam or latte art. Just black coffee. I took a sip, and it was strong enough to jump-start a heart.
“Jesus.”
“Good?”
“Depends on what you're trying to achieve.”
He smiled. “I am Willem.”
“Dan.”
We shook hands, and his grip was surprisingly solid. He sat across from me. “So, Dan, why are you twenty kilometers from where you should be?”
“Bad driver.”
“No.” He looked at me intently. “The taxi explains why you are here. It does not explain why you are in my country.”
I leaned back. “Work.”
“What kind of work?”
I hesitated. Usually, I'd just spit it out. Professional wrestler. Fromer champion. Dangerous Dan. All that noise. But sitting here in this quiet shop with a stranger who was studying me like he had all the time in the world, the usual answer felt ridiculous.
“I fight people.”
Willem nodded. “For money?”
“Among other things. I'm a wrestler.”
His expression shifted slightly. “Professional? Like on the television?”
“Something like that.”
“Are you famous?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“I am asking you.”
I looked into my coffee. “I guess so.”
He shrugged. “I have never heard of you.”
“Honestly? That's kind of refreshing.”
He smiled. “And why are you here to wrestle?”
“The World Championship.”
That got his attention. “You are the champion?”
“No. Not yet.”
“So, you want to become it.”
“That's the plan.”
He leaned back, watching me. “You do not sound very excited.”
There it was. He'd known me for ten minutes and already found the leak.
“I’m excited.”
“No.”
“Do you always tell people they're wrong?”
“At my age, there isn't much punishment left for being honest.”
I looked over at the photos on the wall. I noticed one of Willem when he was younger, maybe thirty. He was standing next to a dark-haired woman, surrounded by three kids. Everyone was beaming.
“Is that your family?” I asked.
His eyes drifted to the frame. “It was.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry yet. You do not know what happened.” He took a slow sip of his coffee. “Tell me about this championship.”
I almost laughed. “Nice subject change.”
“Yes. Because I asked first.”
“The World Championship is the biggest deal in my world,” I said. “I've wanted it for years.”
“Then why do you look like you are waiting for a surgery?”
I rubbed my hands together. The truth was that I didn't know how to explain it. I'd spent my life dreaming of this. I'd told everyone I deserved it, screamed that I was owed it, and promised anyone who'd listen that I'd eventually take what was mine. Now the match was real. Danny B. The Netherlands. The World Title. Everything I said I wanted for the last 15 years, and I hadn't slept a full night since the contract was signed.
“I lost something recently,” I admitted. “A different championship, I fought so hard to keep.”
Willem didn't ask for the play-by-play. He just nodded. “And now you are afraid to lose again.”
“No,” I snapped. The answer was too fast, and we both knew it.
“So, yes.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You did not have to.”
I looked out at the rain tracing lines down the glass. “You ever spend years convincing yourself something has to happen? Like, if you just work hard enough and hurt enough, the universe eventually has to pay you back?"
“The universe does not owe debts,” Willem said. “People think suffering earns them something,” he continued. “It does not. Suffering is not a currency.”
“You always talk like this?”
“Only when Americans wander into my bakery looking miserable.”
“I've sacrificed a lot, man.”
“I am sure you have. But sacrifice does not guarantee a reward.”
I didn't have an answer for that. Willem looked at the photo again.
“My wife was named Anna. we married when I was twenty-three. Everyone said we were too young, and they were right. We fought about everything at first. Money, work, her mother, my drinking.”
He gave me a small smile. “Then we had our daughter, Marieke. Suddenly, I was terrified of everything. I realized there was this human being who actually thought I knew what I was doing.”
“That is terrifying,” I said. I thought about my son, Elias. The weird pressure of having someone look at you like you have all the answers just because you're an adult. You don't. Most of us are just kids who got older and got better at hiding the confusion.
“I have a son who's sixteen. I hope to god he doesn't think I know everything."
“He likely knows better by now,” Willem joked. “Is there a partner?”
“Luca. My fiancé.”
“Do they travel with you? Do they worry?”
“Not all the time. And yeah, probably more than they let on.”
Willem nodded. “Anna worried. She died twelve years ago from cancer. It was fast. Faster than anyone thought.”
We sat in silence for a bit. Sometimes that's the only respectful thing to do.
“We thought we had time,” Willem said quietly. “That is the big lie everyone buys into; not that we live forever, but the idea that anything important can just be done later.” He stared into his cup. “I worked all the time. This shop was my life. I wanted to be successful for the kids, for the house, for security. I told myself I was doing it for them.”
“Were you?”
“Only partly. We take what we want and slap someone else's name on it to make the sacrifice easier to swallow.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I worked, Anna raised the kids, years went by. The shop did well, we got the house, the kids grew up and left. Then one morning, Anna told me she was in pain. Seven months later, I buried her.”
His voice didn't waver, which made it even sadder.
“After the funeral, I was back here the next morning. I didn't know where else to go. My identity was this place. If I stopped, I felt like I'd just vanish.”
“So you worked?”
“For three days until my daughter came in and screamed at me for avoiding my grief. She was right, of course.”
I looked at the scars on my knuckles. My body was basically a map of everything I'd survived. People see the scars and think they're a sign of strength, but they don't think about what put them there.
“I don't know who I am without wrestling,” I said. “I've been doing this so long. There's always another match, another title, another reason to keep grinding. If you lose, you have to win the next one. If you win, you're just stressed about keeping it.”
“And when is it enough?” Willem asked. “You think the World Championship will answer that for you.”
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I leaned forward. “What do you want, Willem? You want me to say I'm scared? Fine. I'm terrified. I'm scared that I'll get in there with Danny B and lose, and everyone will find out I was wrong about deserving this. I'm scared I've spent my life wanting something I was never destined to have. And honestly? I'm scared of what happens if I win.”
“Why?”
“Because then what? I win, I hold the belt up, everyone cheers. And then I wake up the next morning and I'm still just me. Everything I thought the title would fix is still going to be there.”
Willem nodded. “Now we are really talking.”
I hated him a little for that, but he was right. My phone buzzed. It was Chris. **Where the hell are you?** and then **Tell me you didn't get kidnapped. Luca will kill me.**
I texted back: **Long Story.**
Chris: **You are in a country with signs everywhere. HOW?**
I put the phone away. We talked for another hour. Not really about wrestling, but about kids, marriage, and regret. Willem told me about Anna dancing in their kitchen and the time his son broke a window. I told him about Tennessee, the endless airports, and how weird it is to be recognized by strangers while still feeling invisible.
Eventually, Willem stood up. “Come upstairs.”
“That's how horror movies start,” I joked.
“I’m seventy-eight. You should be able to take me.”
I followed him to his small, clean apartment. He pulled a wooden box off a shelf. It was filled with hundreds of letters.
“Anna wrote these. After she passed, I found ones she had written but never gave me. Some were angry, some were sweet. This box is full of things she meant to say later. Death turns 'later' into 'never.' I spent years thinking there would always be another conversation, another chance to apologize or say I was proud of her. Don't build your life around 'later,' Dan.”
Something shifted in me. It wasn't a bolt of lightning, just a small, quiet realization.
My phone rang. It was Luca. I answered.
“Hey.”
“You okay? Chris said you were lost.”
“I'm okay. I'm in a bakery with a seventy-year-old Dutch man who keeps insulting me.”
Willem yelled from across the room, “Seventy-eight!”
Luca laughed, and the sound made me feel grounded again. He asked how I really was, and for once, I didn't give the auto-pilot answer.
“Scared” I said.
We talked for a while. He listened, which is a kind of love people don't talk about enough. He didn't try to fix me; he just let me hear myself. He told me I didn't have to win for them to be proud.
“If you lose, you come home,” Luca said. “Elias will make a joke, Chris will annoy you, and I'll tell you to pick up your shoes. Life goes on. And if you win? You still come home.”
I hung up, feeling lighter. I told Willem I had to go. He walked me to the train station. The streets were wet and glowing under the lights.
“Thank you,” I said.
Willem nodded.
I started toward the platform, but he called my name one last time. “Dan. Do not fight Danny B because you are afraid of who you are without the title. Fight because you choose to.”
A few nights later, I was in the empty arena. The ring was set, and in just a couple of days it would be full of noise and lights and people. I climbed in, my footsteps echoing in the silence. For years, I'd pictured this moment as a way to prove my sacrifices were worth it. But standing there, I realized a belt couldn't prove any of that.
I wanted to win. I was going to give it everything I had. But I wasn't fighting to become whole anymore.
Chris climbed in beside me. “Thought you'd be here.”
We stood there for a minute before he said, “Nervous?”
“Terrified.”
“Good,” he said. “Means it matters. But don't try to settle fifteen years of arguments in one night. Just wrestle the match.”
He turned to leave, then stopped. “Dan. No matter what... I'm proud of you.”
I stayed in the ring after he left, just sitting there in the middle. I wasn't Dangerous Dan. I was just Dan from Tennessee. I thought about all the versions of myself I'd been and realized they were all coming into the ring with me.
Friday, I'd fight Danny B. The crowd would scream, the lights would be bright, and we'd both want that title. But I didn't need it to save me anymore. And honestly, that made me more dangerous than I'd ever been.
I walked out of the ring and toward the tunnel. The lights were shutting down section by section. I looked back one last time at the ring sitting under a single light. I thought about Willem, Anna, Chris, Luca, and Elias.
Maybe the real wins aren't the ones everyone sees. Maybe it's the quiet stuff. Admitting you're scared. Moving forward even when you might fail.
I smiled, not for the cameras, but for myself. I walked into the darkness of the tunnel. Friday was Friday. Tonight, I knew who I was. And that was enough.
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“Fifteen years. Just think about that for a second, Danny. That is fifteen years of waiting around. Fifteen years of watching everyone else get their shot while I fought, bled. And proved over and over that I actually belonged in the mix. I have won championships and I have lost them too. I have walked through absolute hell more times than I really want to remember right now. But through every single bit of it, there was always one thing that stayed just out of my reach. A shot at the World Championship…
Until this moment…
And Danny, you really need to get something straight before we both step into that ring in the Netherlands. I respect you. I probably respect you more than almost anyone else I have ever faced. Our history goes way back almost 20 years. You were the person who gave me my very first World Championship in CWR after this company folded the first time around. You chose to believe in me when you did not have any reason to, and I have never forgotten that once…
But once that bell rings? None of that matters anymore. The history does not matter. The friendship does not matter. Even the respect does not matter. Because I did not wait fifteen long years for this exact moment just so I could shake your hand when it is over and tell people I gave it a good effort…
I am coming there to walk out as the World Champion. I will do whatever it takes. If I have to push myself way past any limit I have ever hit, I will do it. If I have to drag you into deep water and just see which one of us is actually able to survive longer, I will. If I have to turn into someone you do not even recognize by the time the match ends, then so be it…
You’re the only thing standing between me and the dream I have been chasing for fifteen years. I do respect you, Danny. I really will always respect you. But I am not going to sacrifice my dream just to protect our history together. In the Netherlands, I am finally taking my shot…
And Danny...
The ENDD is near. Can you feel it?”
“When you're 0-2 in the Super Bowl, they say unkind things about you. They say, 'He can't win the big one.' And that's the worst thing that can be said about you.” ~Don Shula