A Competitor with an Outsiders Point of View

I arrive at the Marriott in downtown Providence, Rhode Island at noon on Friday, November 26th, plenty of time before my 12:30 pm tanning appointment or so I thought. A line is already formed with all the other competitors checking into their rooms. I am fourth in line and getting nervous if I am going to be late for my appointment. It’s my turn, check-in was quick and I rushed up to my room on the fourth floor pulling the cart with my evening gown, cocktail dress, shoes, and a small suitcase. I open the door to my room, very nice, holding the door with my foot, I grab the items off the cart and throw them on the floor. Grabbing the dresses, I hang them up quickly and jump back onto the elevator to the main floor to ask for directions to where they are doing the tanning. Only five minutes late, I check-in and wait another five minutes until the woman who looks younger than my twenty-six-year-old daughter tells me to strip down and get into the three-sided tent. She tells me the tanning spray is going to be cold and she was right. No time for being shy at this point, buck naked and having to bend and lean every which way as to get the tanning solution in every crevice. The woman calls over another girl and tells her, see how light-skinned she is, she probably will need at least two to three coats. I jokingly say, do you mean twenty-three coats? As I am getting my tan on, I can’t help but notice the woman in the other tent drying herself with a special drier for the tanning lotion. She has had breast implants and possibly glute implants as well. As I look down at my sagging, vanishing breasts that I have lost over the last three -weeks along with twelve pounds that I did not need to lose, I think this woman has never seen breasts the size of cupcakes. It’s my turn to air dry my body, as I am busy getting every inch dry as possible, another woman occupies the tent next to me. She too has breast implants, oh well, this is the all-natural me besides a tan.

Tonight is registration night, I have a beautiful plum one-shoulder cocktail dress by Jay Godfrey that my daughter found on Threads Up for ten dollars, with tags, still attached, can’t beat the price. The dress fits like a glove, I have four-inch tan sandals with a strap that clips behind my ankle. I wear the WBFF approved earrings, ring, and bracelet to add a little bling to the dress. I head to the bottom floor of the hotel where the registration and information session is taking place. As I am riding the elevator, I am excited and nervous all at the same time, not knowing what to expect and how the other women will be. As I walk into the room, it is filled, only a small row of chairs is available in the last row. I take a seat by myself but notice one seat much closer to the front that looks empty. I go up and ask the women if the seat is vacant and they say yes. I sat there listening to the three women, who clearly know each other well. Am I the only loner here, it appears so? I ask the woman next to me if this is her first competition and she said no. She reciprocates and asks me the same question, yes, I said.  We receive our number, and I am excited because I got number one-hundred-twenty-eight, tomorrow the twenty-eighth I would be celebrating my fifty-fifth birthday.

Music starts to play, and a gentleman walks into the room and starts to get all of us hyped up and excited about the competition. We are told that the audience wants a show, it is a competition to us, but a show for them. A former WBFF Pro shows us inappropriate poses that are not allowed and gives substitutions for those that were planning on using these poses. I’ll use the name Rick for the gentleman who goes on to tell us how it took him several attempts before he won his first competition and now, he is working for WBFF, and we too could have possible job opportunities. Rick tells us how exciting it is to travel the world for the shows. Everyone seems in awe.

As I listen, I start to feel like an outsider. I am here to compete against myself, to show that no matter your age, you can do anything. Age is an excuse due to fear and self-doubt, afraid of failure. My ears listening attentively, I now see that this is nothing more than a business and of course, they want you to come back and compete again, competing in a show is not cheap by any means. I head back to my room and call a friend and tell him about registration and how I felt like I didn’t belong. I belong as far as the competition because I have trained hard and prepared aggressively for the past three months, but I am not here to compete against the other women, I want to inspire other women. I got ready to lay in the comfy bed to watch a little television before turning out the lights. I don’t know what was more exciting at this point, being away for the weekend or getting ready to compete. I say this because I hadn’t been away since 2020 when Covid took over our lives, and I was desperate for an escape from reality even if it was by myself and just for a weekend.  

My morning wake-up call came at 8 am, I was up and ready to go just before the phone rang. I had a 9 am hair and makeup appointment, I ate my two egg whites and six pieces of asparagus before heading down. I was excited to get my makeup done by a professional, would I wondered if I would look glamorous. I had the hairdresser straighten my hair and then made my way over to Kelley for my makeup. I showed her a picture of the bikini I was going to wear and asked her to do what she thought would look best. Another woman who was sitting next to me looked over and said that my makeup looked great. I was excited about the grand unveiling, Kelley put the extra-large square mirror in front of me, and there I was. What, is this really me, it doesn’t even look like me. I have never worn fake eyelashes in my life and the amount of makeup was overwhelming, I even had it in my ears. I had Kelley take a picture of me and when I got back to my room, I looked at the photo. What I saw was a frail woman with a shit load of makeup and almost pin-straight hair. I hadn’t realized how thin I had gotten until I saw myself in the photo, I was stunned.

The day was long waiting until 3 pm when all the competitors had to meet in the grand ballroom to be shown how we were supposed to walk and wave while on stage. Rick was there again with blaring music instructing us which arm to use when waving and that we were to smile the entire time while on stage during the show. This was going to be challenging since I don’t wear a permanent smile on my face, only when I am laughing or happy about something. Forty-five minutes later all the women head down to a large room on the bottom floor to change into our bikinis for the show.

All of us stripping down and scrambling for any last-minute adjustments or help getting dressed. I am in a bit of a panic because I have lost so much of my chest area that my left breast doesn’t want to stay in the bikini top. I take drastic measures and duct tape my left breast so I don’t have to worry about a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, at fifty-five this would not be pretty. I am feeling good and ready to get on stage. We all head upstairs into a room next to the ballroom with a door leading to the stage. It’s my turn, age forty and up category line up. I am third in line just glad I am not the first one to go out. I walk over to the three stairs that I have to climb with the five-inch heels that I am wearing. I grab ahold of the wobbly railing and walk onto the stage. I do my poses in the three areas with a huge smile the entire time, I thought my face was frozen as if I were given an injection of Botox. I line up in the back once I am done and the other women keep coming on stage for their turn. We are now all lined up roughly fourteen of us. We all take a couple of steps forward onto the gray duct tape line. Rick tells us to turn to the right, then turn with our back facing the audience, turn back to the front, the entire time doing a different pose. Showing your physique or best asset for the judges. Finally, we are done and can walk off the stage.

Rushing downstairs to get changed into our evening gowns. I need some sugar, I have Starburst and start to pop them into my mouth as if I hadn’t eaten in hours, oh wait, I hadn’t. It felt good to get the heels off my feet even if it is just for a short period of time. As everyone is rushing around, we are told to hurry up and get back upstairs. Ten minutes later, we are back in the same room, but this time we sit around for forty-five minutes. Many of the ladies sit on the floor and take their shoes off. I decided to take my shoes off too, I am done, I just want to go back to my room order a pizza, and lay in bed and watch television. While waiting around I started talking with one of the other women and asked if she would do another competition. She said yes and I told her that I looked forward to gaining ten to fifteen pounds back. That is not what she told me, she wanted to maintain where she was.

Looking around the room, I am thinking that these women must be confident to go on stage, yet I question, are they really that confident? Do they need to get breast implants, Botox lips, and make other adjustments to their bodies just to feel good about themselves? I feel sad for the ones that feel that this is what they must do to be in the competition and/or feel confident.

We finally were called to go back on stage in our evening gowns, it was quick only two poses and then they chose who the winners were. I was not among the chosen, but I was a winner already because I came and proved my point that age doesn’t matter. I felt good about preparing for the competition and learned a great deal along the way. This was a huge mindset and physical challenge that I won.

I did get my marinara brick oven pizza at 9 pm, took a hot shower, scrubbed all the makeup off, put my pj’s on, and watched television with the large pizza sitting on my lap. The next morning it was good to look like me once again with minimal makeup, a pair of jeans, and a comfortable shirt. I decided to have breakfast at the hotel, I ordered an omelet then headed to the buffet where I ate two pieces of French toast, home fries, two pieces of toast with jelly, and a cup of fruit. I was making up for lost time on my eating. While I was sitting there, one of the young women, twenty-something who competed in the show was with her father and sister. She turned to me as her mother walked over to them and said excitedly, you inspired my mother. Her mother said she could never have as much confidence as I had on that stage, I responded by saying that if I could do it, anyone can. That simple word from the woman’s mouth inspired me was what made my entire weekend. I came to inspire other women and I did just that.