lifefullyinhabited

I didn’t even look at the temperature this morning. I know it is cold, I know there are wind chill factors going on. I am not sure I am conscious. I just got to the gym.

It felt like sleep-walking, the “am I really here, doing this?” experience.

And it also felt like this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing.

So, another day, another work-out. If I had gold stars, I would put one on the calendar.

I’m feeling like I need a reward for my accomplishments this week. Something non-food.

The sky was a beautiful deep pink on the eastern horizon as the sun was rising on my way out of the gym.
That beauty was kind of a reward. I never would have seen that if I would have stayed home this morning.

(deep sigh)

Another below zero day outside. So what, I made it to the gym anyway!
My trainer’s words rattling in my head, “Use the gym as your escape from stress.” That’s what got me here today.
Stress. Who doesn’t have it? It doesn’t matter what the source is. Stress is stress.

So, I go the gym today to work off stress. Ten minutes into a strength training workout, I am not thinking about stress.
Only thinking about breathing. Counting reps and breathing. Nothing else exists in those moments.
When I leave the gym, whatever was stressing me out doesn’t seem as insurmountable.

I am starting to feel a tingling in my muscles that lasts the whole day after working out. I like to imagine that my cells are waking up. They have been apathetic and lazy and ignored. Now they are working and processing, and alive! I am a little sad that I have allow the sleeping lazy phase to linger for years.

But I am processing, changing, waking up. Maybe I’ve finally come alive to the marvel that is “my body”.

Not as cold this morning as I trudged to the garage. Also, I’m going to the gym a little later in the morning. This is a good sign, because I’ve been awake long enough to have changed my mind about going, and I still made it to the gym. The workout felt easier today, my spirits a bit lighter. I really enjoyed, yep, I said it, I enjoyed this workout.

I enjoy knowing that the rest of the day I don’t have to have that nagging feeling bothering me “you really should work out today. you know you need the exercise”. Now it is done and over and the day is mine.

That’s it today. No whining or complaining or excuses. Must savor this moment.

I crunch through the frozen snow on the porch and squint up to the sky, clear, dark and cold. A 3/4 moon silently judges me as I make my way to the garage. The thermometer on the porch checks in at ten degrees below zero. It’s hard to breathe the subzero air. It’s like tiny needles piercing my lungs.

What in the world am I doing, leaving my warm nest at 6:45am? Why did I pick today to be the day to overcome inertia, to start a journey of going to the gym every day, no excuses.

And as I breathe that question, the answer already settles in: because if I can make it to the gym on a day like today, I can make it to the gym any day. No excuses.

It’s too cold, its too dark, I’m too tired, my feet hurt, my feet don’t hurt but they feel like concrete blocks, it’s too early, it’s too late, and on and on the excuses pile up.

I’m tired of the excuses. So I decided to just get over it and get to the gym. Everyday, no excuses.
Maybe that’s too ambitious. Maybe I’m setting myself up for failure.

But just maybe it will work. And maybe I’m setting myself up for success. At least I have to try.
Because if I don’t try, I’ll get what I’ve always got.

Disappointment and failure. And I’m really tired of that.

As I settle in the car, I have an out of body feeling, like is this really me, driving to the gym through the polar vortex. The same woman, who, during the last polar vortex two weeks ago wouldn’t leave her bed.

I enter the gym and it is surprisingly warm and cozy feeling, like a womb. After 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill, my feet are loosening up and no longer feel like concrete blocks. I experience what may be an endorphin rush. Now I am enjoying the music and the movement.

Forty-five minutes of movement and its time to head home. Leaving the gym, standing a little taller, almost smiling.

The sun is rising, cars move along the roads shrouded in exhaust fumes in the polar air. Like a migration of dinosaurs, confused dinosaurs, going in every direction. Trying to escape the cold.

My shrouded, huddled dino-mobile chugs along on one of the migration routes and squeaks back home. You know its cold when the snow squeaks.

No disappointment today, I am victorious today. I have overcome a mountain of inertia.