Tag: workout

Volun-cheering

Today was awesome, yet stressful, but both in very good ways.

First, I had an awesome time volunteering with my gym at sunrise for the Bayou City Tri Series 2021 Sylvan Beach Paralympic Triathlon. We had the honor of physically and verbally assisting paratriathletes in their transitions, as they worked toward earning points to be part of Team USA. I think we all look forward to the next such opportunity – it was a blessing and a blast for us all. ❤🤗🙏 💪👊🏻

And it brought me to tears multiple times, it was such an honor to be a part of it all.

It also brought back memories of my many sports volunteering days, and had me wondering yet again if I don’t want to find actual work in that world, somehow… There was a lot that, unfortunately, had not been sorted out properly for the event as a whole – there were other races happening this morning, too. Our little crew took it upon ourselves just to go ahead and handle many of those things, making a tremendous difference for all athletes that were out there racing today. And I enjoyed doing even that stuff.

From there, after the sun was well over the horizon but not all that far up, I headed to a karate tournament that was nearby. It was my first one in roughly 18 years, and my first one ever in the adult division. I was absolutely nervous, but I had all day to get even more so, since my division wasn’t until mid-afternoon. But I had volunteered to take photos, and so I got to enjoy working with that throughout all the kids’ sparring all morning and midday.

I did take a good couple minutes at one point in a private room with myself to talk and make noise and jump and move, fully on my own. And I did give myself close to a minute to go ahead and experience all the pent-up emotion that had been building all day, just a short while before my category was going to be up. (Aka I cried brief tears of stress and anxiety, and let a lot go with them as they lightly tripped out of my eyes.)

I had someone record my match for me, and he did so well enough. It turns out that I actually did better than I had thought I’d done at the actual time of the match. After watching the matches of the adults at the end, the highest ranked individuals, I have been able to see styles of everyone, and how much comfort makes a difference in a match. When someone is comfortable, he or she almost always does very well. When someone is uncomfortable, he or she usually does not very well. That isn’t to say win versus lose – I mean doing well, sparring well, technique-ing well (both attack and defense). Yes, that usually also results in winning, if those are all done well. But it isn’t about winning to me these days, so much as it is about doing well. Winning when doing well, however, just adds to the fun and joy of it all.

I have some specifics on which I want to work – reacting with a point-earning move to being blocked, practicing different point-earning trio combinations, and backward spinning kicks (one would have created a beautiful point today, but I had neither confidence nor comfort in it, so didn’t even consider it – only the video afterward showed me the opportunity [I’d spun and everything, but didn’t even try to hit her with the foot]). Now, just to find the partner to work with me, and the place to do it.

Oh, and this was one of the very few times that I 1)didn’t lose a match at a tournament, and 2)didn’t cry after the match. Good start in my eyes, even just for those two facts! ;P

So, yeah… today was a really great-for-me day, all of its stresses included.

Post-a-day 2021

Ouch…

But seriously, who invented all the nonsense that goes alongside menstruation? Utter nonsense… ::facepalm

Anyway, this weekend, I saw the wife of someone I know. Though I had seen the husband many, many times, I had not seen the wife until this Saturday.

When I first saw her, it took a few moments to process fully what I was seeing. Then it took another few moments to allow for my initial reactions. And another few to crave indulging in them. And a final few to allow them just to be, and then, therefore, to release. Rather than being upset by what I saw, I knew I could have it be a positive experience – even if it took some effort.

“Body goals,” I told myself, letting it fall heavily from my lips, the initial sigh thereby dispersed. Music was playing loudly at the gym, so I had no overhearing ears. I really only could feel the words vibrate through my body, as it wasn’t loud enough for my own ears to hear over the music.

But I felt it… and in more ways than one.

After that, I kept going back and forth between awe at how amazing she was physically, and wanting to break down crying at how far away I am from that right now.

I knew pitying myself was neither necessary nor valuable, so I always let that one go. But that didn’t stop it from co to hint to pop up at intervals throughout the whole day afterward, and even the following day somewhat.

As a friend reminded me later, the wife probably wasn’t like that when they got married, and it probably took her years to get to that point. Same for the husband. (Though, he was always less intimidating or whatever, because he’s male, I suppose.) It wasn’t an overnight process for either of them, and they probably weren’t already like that when they first met one another or even got married.

That idea gives me hope… that I can find someone who is fit beautifully already and who values my own work thus far, but who will continue to grow with me and thereby support and empower me o to further-enhanced fitness throughout our future. I would continue this same road, but no longer on my own. I’d have a true partner in crime for it all. (So to speak, that is… haha)

Anyway,… there’s that ouch and the menstruation and resulting digestion ouch, and the utter exhaustion that they and all the other stress have brought for this evening.

Alas, I shall now go sleep… with an alarm every two-ish hours, of course, to use the bathroom. ::facepalm I swear…, whoever made up this nonsense must have been severely out of his wits at the time… Man…

Post-a-day 2021

Training

Just because I’m reading David Goggins’s stories of doing intense physical training, I have found myself feeling like I were doing intense physical training.

But I’m totally not.

Right?

Sure, I’m doing the workouts at the gym 4-5 days a week, weekdays at 5:15am, Saturdays at the 10:00 class (because there isn’t one like it earlier). But that’s it, right? I guess I am training for Murph for Memorial Day. That’s usually once or twice a week. It is actually a rather intense run with a weighted vest, where I do between two and four and a half miles. I end up sore for days afterward, every time I run, and almost all over my body. I’m at the ten pounds now, and am considering finding a way to get it to 16.4 before the end of the month, even though the weights don’t come in increments to allow that very easily.

But that might just need to wait for next year. I am into this Goggins approach, but only to a degree. I want to take care of my body more than I want to push it at far as it can go. The 40% Rule is great, and I’d love to increase myself to 50 or 60% more often, but, more than that, I want to increase significantly what my 40% is in the first place. I want my 40% to be what my 100% would have been in the past. I like to be strategically smart and safe. I will get things done, but I always will be strategic and safe about doing so.

On that note, I must sleep, as the gym awaits me early in the morning.

May the fourth be with you all. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

Back on the log*

I stayed in bed – with possibly six bathroom breaks (number one only) – from 7:45pm to about 6:45am this morning. My sleep was fitful. I did my feel entirely rested when I got up. However, my bowels functioned somewhat normally, and without any pains, and that was a total win.

I still felt slow, my lower belly and lower right edge were still uncomfortable (but not in pain), and I was somehow a bit clumsy, but I felt significantly improved overall. It still took effort to talk, but a whole lot more came out, whenever I did attempt speaking, and much sooner than it had taken every time yesterday. My mom noticed that part immediately when we finally spoke later in the morning.

I wasn’t sure how the day would progress, and was worried I might have to be home and, possibly, in bed most of the day. By nine o’clock, I had determined that I likely would go in to work. It was only for three hours today, and the prospect of being at home all alone, especially with the discomfort and all, was not a delightful one. So, I took a fitful nap, after eating some, and then got up and went in. I was slow-moving still, with a light sensation of my guts being as of yet undetermined as to when they might escape my body and in which direction they might choose to do that escape.

I adjusted after a little while to being able to talk to people quite normally, and eventually was at almost full normalcy on that front. I was able to walk around a bit faster near the end, and even jogged back inside, when I discovered that I’d left my smoothie near-dregs in the fridge. That surprised me, even.

I did my grocery shopping, and headed home to change. Since late morning, I had been messaging a buddy from the gym about running together this afternoon/evening. He hadn’t replied to my inquiry yesterday (about running today), and I knew he probably had been out drinking.

Turns out that he had arrived home around 3:30am last night/this morning. I told him that 13+ hours was plenty of recovery time, and that, though he claimed he felt like he was dying, I had almost ended up in Urgent Care, and so he and I could die together – it would be better to die in good company than all alone, after all.

He allowed that we could make it work, assuming he didn’t feel quite so terrible by the evening. We agreed that we would be in touch after I finished grocery shopping in the afternoon.

By the time, however, that he responded to my messages in the afternoon, he told me that he was out drinking… right then. Can we get a facepalm, please?? ;P

I considered running to the bar to meet him, partly for getting back at him for leaving me hanging, and partly for my desire not to be left alone with whatever was going on in my belly. It was gorgeous outside, and I knew it was an outdoor patio kind of place, only a 5k from my house. However, he was actually doing some one-on-one time with a friend from out of town, and so I did not do that.

(Okay, but when was he planning to run with me, if he had the friend in all weekend, anyway?? Either he’s a sneaky liar or wasn’t thinking, I dare say.)

And so, I went running in my own. What had intended to be a short little run, maybe two miles at most (plus a .05 as stretch beyond the goal), and at a slower, we-are-ill pace, turned out to be a full-on ladder run – with the 10lb vest, recall – that ended up being the third-fastest 5k I have ever done. Period. That means without any weighted vest for those fastest times. And I did my third-fastest with a 10lb vest on me, wondering the whole time if I might hurl or just sh** my pants at any given moment.

That is some other-world Goggins stuff right there.* Nearly end up in a hospital in the morning, have a panic attack, work out late morning, nearly fall apart trying to work in the afternoon, so go home and get ready for bed at 4:45pm. Sleep forever, wake up still sick, go to work again anyway, and then do one of the hardest and most successful runs of my life, considering if and when I might need to crap or vomit on the side of the road somewhere. (I actually did come very close to vomiting right after I set out!)

So, yeah… what a day…

*If you don’t get the references, read David Goggins’s book, Can’t Hurt Me.

Post-a-day 2021

Oh, snap…

6:40am: Wake up groggily, in need of a bathroom. I have slept in by over two and a half hours, and my body is demanding that I get up to relieve it, at last. I do.

As I re-ascend, a flea lands on my ankle. I grab it immediately, destroy it, and flush it down the sink. This cycle repeats itself once more, but this time with the bug landing on my shin. I head downstairs a get plates and tea lights, set up the traps in a few spots, hoping to nab anything left while it is still somewhat dark outside, and pour the soapy water and light the candles.

As I am just about to head upstairs to my bed – for I had not felt as though I had slept eight hours, and felt a real need for more – , a pain strikes my lower belly. Oh, no… digestion problem, I think, rushing back to the bathroom. Everything had gone as usual in the bathroom initially, but my father’s (and my maternal grandfather’s) GI tract genes had been passed down to me, so it is somewhat always a toss-up as to whether by bowels will be normal or ridiculously sensitive.

Back in the bathroom, I find that nothing is interested in moving – it feels as though there is nothing to depart from my body, even. And yet, I am suddenly crying out in pain, it has become so intense. But nothing seems to be happening inside me. Just pain exists, increasing to a point I have never known. I have had success pains before, but they typically end within a minute, as things readjust inside me, and then I am fine.

But this is somehow different.

The cries of pain continue to escape my lips, shocking my more and more. What is happening?

There is a chance it could be the appendix. The position of the point of the most pain is appropriate. But I’d need a second opinion to be sure. Perhaps I would do best to call my mom and ask her, since I know that she knows. The cries and the pain continue and increase, as the phone calls.

Straight to voicemail. I call again, in case it is merely Do Not Disturb. Voicemail immediately. She’s still asleep. I could call the house, but only if absolutely necessary, as it would wake more than just her. Wait on that.

Thinking is growing fuzzy. As I begin to get up from the toilet, my ears lose full hearing, filling partly with a fuzzy, humming noise. My vision is shaking. I might be about to pass out.

I rush to wash my hands, and rinse some cool water on the back of my neck. It helps briefly and barely. I need water. But my bottle is upstairs. If something goes wrong, I need to be downstairs. There’s a cold bottle in the fridge, I recall.

I bolt in a slow stumble down the stairs to the kitchen, and open the fridge, shakily. I manage to pull out the water and drink some, then hold it against the back of my neck.

But I cannot hold it there. Before I really know how it has happened, I find myself on my hands and knees, my head laying inside the fridge, my breathing heavy and intense.

I just feel so hot.

And I hadn’t five minutes ago.

Something is definitely wrong.

I call my brother. He does not answer. I call the house for my mom twice, but it just keeps ringing both times. Some emergency contacts, I think, somewhere far back in my brain.

I might hurl, I realize. But I might just need a bowel release. Either way, I need to get back to the bathroom.

Because I always put things away, I put the water away in the fridge, though something inside tells me too weakly to bring it with me. Too hard to hold.

I crawl back up the stairs, so hot, out of breath, the pain only increasing in my lower belly, just above my pelvic floor, especially on the right side.

I make it to the bathroom. Nothing is moving in my bowels, nothing wants to exit. As I have been contemplating where to seek emergency medical care, should I need it – though, I had wanted a second opinion on that, this the phone calls – I am now faced fully with making the decision myself. But I know I cannot see well enough or function well enough to find the directions to the right place on my phone. Urgent Care, not ER, but I have never been there, so I’m not certain we’re it is; just that it is near.

First that, then see if I can drive… or even make it to the car.

I have been very near passing out this past several minutes, I know I need someone else to know of my situation, to help if I do pass out.

I call a friend on EDT, knowing she would be awake by 8:20am, even if it is a Saturday. She answers.

But I find that I cannot speak.

I manage a greeting of some sort, I believe, but then just continue breathing heavily, crying tears of pain and confusion and frustration. I know she will remain calm and evaluate properly, but I need to communicate what is happening.

My arms have gone completely tingly, shoulders to fingertips. When did that happen?

With much struggle and murkiness, I finally manage to say what is happening. I am only in underwear at this point. My shirt was wrenched off in the bathroom when the heat first began – I had thought that I only was overheating somewhat, but my skin was completely soaked with sweat once I’d slid off my shirt.

She first tells me that her husband (hems a doctor, but not the first reason I was calling her) is not with her right now, but then immediately tells me that I might be having a panic attack – BREATHE. At this point, I am lying face-down on the floor, my cheek just hanging over the first stair step. My left hand clenches a soaked paper towel… soaked with what? Tears, snot, sweat…, probably all of them, but I cannot quite remember how it even got to my hand. My right hand is pressed into my lower right belly, at the point of the most pain.

Staring at the phone – on speaker – on the floor next to me, I focus on calming my breathing, deepening each stroke. I am still terrified, but I already feel immensely better emotionally, now that someone is here with me. That helps my breathing ease better.

We laugh at her comment on how I should probably be talking to an actual doctor, not someone searching on WebMD. My face is soaked and my body hurts, my arms still tingling, but my hearing has been restored and I can see clearly, though my processing is still slow – it takes real effort to make the words come out. But I tell her that, if we determine I need to go to see a real doctor, I first need to make it upstairs to put on clothes. We laugh at the prospect of my showing up in my car in just a pair of underwear, and I wonder if I would end up with a ticket afterward for indecent exposure…. and yet an ambulance would have taken me in just my underwear, and that would have made their jobs even easier.

I marvel somewhere in the back at how I can even have such thoughts right now, but can barely manage to mutter a single simple sentence aloud.

I tell her that, even if it just turns out to be digestion issues, I am totally okay with that. I’m still glad I was able to get ahold of her. I’d actually rather not have it go that way if I ended up at Urgent Care, however. Not cool. She is giving me options of what might be wrong, assessing my specifics on the pain locations.

Nothing quite lines up as well as the facts that 1)I am near beginning menstruation, and 2)I have bad bowel genes. I ate brisket yesterday, which I do not usually do, but everything else was rather normal in my food.

As we sit on the phone, the pain slowly begins to ebb away, bit by bit. I ask her to stay with me, and she agrees with a firmness that she had already planned on that.

After an hour, I finally have been able to roll to my right side, and curl up in a ball for a bit, and then lie on my back, knees up. The pain has finally begun shifting around slightly, no longer covering such a great area within my body, but it has shifted partly, though gently, to the tender area just above the pelvic bone and in front of the uterus. It is relaxing its grip, nonetheless. I make it to my hands and knees. My arms are only barely tingling.

I need water. I had wanted some already, and had laughed as I’d told her that my brain felt like she could get it for me, because she was here with me now… that fogginess hadn’t been able to sort out the different between digital and physical presence, obviously. But so, I have finally made it to my hands and knees. After staying there a while longer, I finally make it shakily to my feet, and then head downstairs. Perhaps I should eat food, too.

I have some calm, dry food, after I gulp some more water, and she tells me she’ll check in again later.

It is almost 9:00 now. I use the bathroom once more – no BM or gas, of course – and head upstairs to rest briefly. For some reason, I have it in my head that I still need to go to the gym. I had already canceled the 9:00am cardio class, knowing that was neither an option nor a good idea. Not paying that no-show fee. But the 10:00 class is just calm weights, and part of that was something I had missed Monday and had been waiting to make up all week.

I couldn’t miss it… but that had been a thought I’d had before the morning’s insanity. However, my brain was still so murky that it was not able to notice that fully. It just knew that I had to go to 10:00. And that I had convinced someone to go with me, and had helped that person sign up for the class this morning… while I was lying on the floor in the hallway, shaking still…

(I know, right?)

And so, after a brief nap, I did go. Before we began, one of the guys asked about my morning so far – I think – and so I told him a brief summary.

‘And you’re still here?!’

My brain hadn’t even considered that yet. Life goes on, was all it could think, and so it had had me continue onward in my day.

It was still very difficult to talk, to make my body out forth the effort of creating and spitting out words, more than just a few at a time. But, once we got to work on our training, I didn’t really need words – not more than a few every so often – and so life felt somewhat normal. I was sleepy, exactly, but my brain felt something like sleepy, and my body was definitely tired. I had the wherewithal to take it all easy, but not to consider that I maybe should just go to bed or something.

I think I really wanted to be with people for a while. And whatever was wrong with me seemed utterly unlikely to be contagious. I’d even checked my temperature, and it was quite low. No elevation whatsoever. And I don’t feel that kind of sick, anyway. I just felt cloudy and a bit weak on endurance.

And I was. But I got through all that I’d determined to do for today’s workout, and I felt much improved by the end of it. Though, no longer having a specific, repetitive task in front of me, it was a struggle to walk to the car to get myself home. I stopped for bananas on the way, knowing I would want smoothies today and tomorrow, and feeling a call toward eating a banana, anyway.

I managed to make food and eat it, and drink some smoothie, and then shower and nap for a while before having to head to work. When I got in, I found that I couldn’t talk. Not quickly, anyway. If someone greeted me, I could only smile, and then wonder how speech worked, feeling mentally my throat and mouth. I set down my stuff, and acknowledged that maybe I couldn’t do this work today, despite my efforts to show up. My belly had begun aching again, but I wasn’t sure when. Every time I considered genuinely talking, my eyes started to burn.

I went a spoke to the supervisor. She reminded me what the store actually does, that they’ve been short workers before, and that it is significantly more important that I take care of my own health and well-being than suffer through helping there. They absolutely would make it without me, if I needed to go home. And the fact that I had shown up in the first place spoke volumes to my dedication. No, there were no negative repercussions for me, if I determined that I needed to go home right now. Think about it, she told me, and let her know. I had been crying from the moment I’d started telling her what had happened.

After a few minutes sitting there, chatting – well, sort of – with another coworker who had been in the room with us, I noticed that I was hunching forward. When I stood up, I could not stand up straight. The pain was too strong, and I was too weak.

I was going home.

Now, it is just after 6:30pm. I am lying uncomfortably in bed, that lower right spot gently twisting again. The aim is to sleep. The goal is to awaken healed tomorrow. We shall see what happens.

Post-a-day 2021

Today’s date

I went on a date today. And I knew about it. I even partly (slash mostly) asked him out. It was very cool and super serendipitous and all.

I had met him at the gym, actually – perfect place, in my opinion! – but had a weird feeling a couple days ago that I was going to find him on this dating app I had (but wasn’t exactly using anymore). The likelihood stood out clearly to me, mathematically speaking, of course. However, I have been working on slowing such feelings to guide me. And so, I gave it, perhaps, a minute of my time one day, and about thirty seconds the next. This morning, when I thought about it – and it was for a while that I considered it – it felt that either it was going to happen today or not at all. That was it. And so, I was nervous to look on the app, and, therefore, just thought about it a good long while. Finally, though, when my official activities for the day had all ended, and earlier than had been scheduled, I said it, “Either it is going to happen now or not at all.”

I opened the application. Swipe once to deny. Swipe twice. Swipe thrice.

And there he was.

Staring back at me from a photo I had just the other day seen was that guy from the gym. (I had seen his Instagram, but had only minimally perused, as I was finding that I might genuinely be interested in pursuing some sort of relationship with this guy.)

I yelled out loud. “I knew it!” I declared on repeat a few times. I had been lying on my belly on the floor, and had almost immediately dropped my phone and began rolling around and banging my feet on the floor in childlike delight.

“Aaaaah! I knew it! Yay! Thank you! Aaah!”

Once I got that out of my system, I took some action. I took a screenshot of his profile, and asked him in an Instagram direct message if he was ready (after text-shouting his name at him, and he had replied in kind). It suddenly occurred to me that I might Lose the profile, by leaving the app for too long. So, I quickly returned and swiped right. No matter what happened, it was fun to do so, and everything would be fine, even if he totally denied me. And, if he didn’t, all the better.

I switched back over to the Instagram messages and waited mere seconds before he replied, “Yes.” It seemed an odd response to my semi-surprise-attack and just asking if he was ready. Ready for what? He had no idea. Did he? No. It had only been thirty seconds since I’d swiped his profile.

I sent him the screenshot.

Within another thirty seconds, he replied.

Haha. I saw that.

Check it.

I’m sorry… what???

It took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t just saying a confirmation statement, like Word or, though I very much dislike it, Bet. He actually meant for me to check the app, the dating app.

I had received no notification, not even within the app. But, sure enough, when I clicked on the ‘matches’ section, his face was up there, matched.

And then, a couple hours later, we were together, talking and walking and sitting in the park, enjoying the amazing weather and one another’s company.

I had a really great time with him.

Near the end, I found myself stressing a bit. I don’t date. And I don’t do uncertainty very well. And I have a tendency to believe that others do not like me, and regularly dislike me. But, assuming we do do it again, as he said he wanted to do (and he confirmed that he meant it), I just need to get clear on all of that for myself ahead of time. My experiences of the past need not have influence over this opportunity facing me now. This man – this very sweet, slightly dorky, comfortable man – is not any of those people who have rejected me in the past, be it as a friend or as a romantic partner. He is his own person, and the relationship that he has with me and that I have with him is unique and free from any past rejection I have experienced from others.

Yeah… 🙂

How odd a day, though… I start out the morning mentioning to my dad that I was abused in college, and how it had affected my personal physical fitness until recently, and then I end up on a date that goes well past my usual bedtime. I emphasized to my dad that I truly am okay and that I am doing very well and am free from that abuse now, and he got it, he heard me. But I saw the hurt in his eyes for his daughter, the pain he only then was experiencing for something long-past, and also the relief that it all was completed and resolved for me and my life – that I was hurting no longer from it all.

We had a really great breakfast together, and that was only a small part of it.

Anyway, went a bit tangential there… back to focus!

I started the day there, had a midday rejection from someone whom I had wanted to be my friend – and it was a weird rejection, too; my mom agreed with me on that… it was so odd. But we both agreed that life takes care of us, and that rejection happened because that person is not someone who needs to be in my life right now. After that, I called to find out if someone important to me was, in fact, being held at a certain detention facility (he was not, as it turns out). Never done that before, but now I have. Had a video call to go over a Spanish cheat-sheet thing I developed for my part-time job’s employees who do not speak Spanish but sometimes need to interact with guests who speak Spanish (and the meeting went awesomely). Then picked up a key for some spontaneous house-sitting I’m doing tomorrow. Then, as I sat down to do whatever delights arose next, I said my statement about the now or never, and found the gym guy, and ended up on a date shortly thereafter.

It was a crazy and awesome day, really.

My one genuine concern about the guy, though, is that I noticed today how desperately starved for physical touch I am, and I worry that could get in the way, and possibly cloud my judgement. Plus, it could make me get all weird. What it feels I want more than anything right now is just to be held. And hard. I just want to be pressed against a warm body and held tightly, firmly, lovingly, with care. My whole being wants that.

And I don’t want that to have me express misplaced interest in this guy. So, I don’t know that I am fully interested in him, or if his interest in me has my skin aching more than ever to be held and touched. (And I don’t even mean this sexually. My brain cannot even get there, it has been so focused on that my body might have found someone to hold it.)

That being said, I don’t like most people touching me, really, especially not so intimately as holding me would be. So, I feel like that alone speaks volumes to my potential interest in this guy as a companion/partner. Plus – and this is not to be mean or superficial, but merely to state what’s so – he is not super physically fit, and he is not too near the bodies that typically attract me. My attraction to this guy truly was all about him and who he is as a person, fitness and sexiness aside. Sure, if he sticks it out at our gym, he will be extremely fit and ultra sexy in that fitness. But, for the moment, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him, in some way or other, since he first smiled at me. I don’t have that feral desire to rip his clothes off. I just want to be near him, with him, held by him. I want to talk and snuggle and take a nap with him…

I want to push him over when I walk past him at the gym, and he’s about to pick up a barbell. (I joked the other day about how I had had a sudden urge to do that to him when I’d passed by, and he had said that I should have done it.)

(Also, I’m ovulating right now. Only the truly great ones pass that test… just something to keep in mind.)

He held my hand briefly tonight. I don’t know why it was only briefly. Possibly because I spoke my mind about noticing how starved I was for physical touch from this past year, and that I felt like I might cry, it felt so wonderful to have some. Possibly because our hands were starting to sweat, and I had already talked about my distaste for dirty whenever I am clean. I’m hoping it was more the latter. Frankly, I was just thinking yesterday how one of the things I missed about dance was that I didn’t get to have the occasionally slightly-sweaty hand grips with certain people when dancing… that warmth and sweat today was perfect as far as I was concerned. It was just what I’d needed.

Anyway… that was a bit muddled, but I think it still communicated well enough. Mostly, I think I like this guy a lot as a person. My being seems to trust him so much, it wants to be near him, with him. We’ll see how my mind does. Hopefully, it can stay true to itself and not go nuts in panic or anything.

I usually ask permission to touch someone new in my life – physical boundaries are extremely important to me to respect. He was looking up a smoothie place on his phone, and I was looking on with him. I asked if I could touch him – yes, I had already explained that I am touchy and that the permission is important to me – and he told me I could. I leaned gently into his arm, and hooked mine around his. When I leaned my head fully against this shoulder a few moments later, he leaned his cheek down on top of my head. Call it as simple or as small as you like, but beauty and perfection and true joy are often found in the smallest of things. That moment was perfect and worth it all for me. No matter what comes, there was someone who actively held my hand, who actively leaned into me. And I am grateful for that.

Danke, danke, danke schön, mein Leib und mein Gott. ❤ Ich liebe dich so sehr, Welt.

Post-a-day 2021

^Questioned its accuracy after I typed it so easily😂

Morning life

My cousin is pregnant. Her body wakes her up at approximately 5:34 every morning these days. After my workout this morning (5:15 class), I sent her a message to see if she was up and about. “Indeed,” she replied. So, I called her.

It was a bit weird to grasp, when I considered it all after the fact. Another person and I were chatting lively on the phone about various things, almost as though it were a lunchtime visit. Yet, it was completely dark outside.

After I arrived back home and went inside, I cooked some warm food for breakfast – same as yesterday, but possibly more delicious this time! – and chowed down while I sat next to the gas heater on the floor, still chatting with my cousin. (She was having a nutty cereal for her breakfast, but didn’t know the name… just that it was nutty.)

And none of it felt weird to me. In fact, it all felt really great. When we got off the phone after an hour, at about 7:40, I was washing my dishes and cleaning up after eating my breakfast. I went upstairs, used the bathroom and showered, tutored for almost two hours, then relaxed on my bed for a while. And it all felt completely good. It felt like this was real life as I want it, although I haven’t been living it much lately.

I usually get up around 9:00 to an alarm, unrested (because I actually wake up around 4:30-5:00, and struggle to fall back asleep fully before I have to get up for the day). I start eating somewhere between ten and one pm, and finish any eating by approximately eight hours later (6:00pm-9:00pm).

On the schedule these past two days, however, I’m finishing eating by three and four pm. I’m taking a nap mid-late morning, and feeling very alive for work in the afternoon and evening, despite not eating anymore while there. I go to bed tired – well, exhausted, really – and in a very good way. My body hurts in all the right ways (from the exercise). And I’m eating really quite well. Even the few cookies I ate seem like nothing compared to all the super-healthy stuff I’ve had otherwise. And my body doesn’t even seem to notice that I’ve had them either, it all ha balanced so well.

Basically, once again, I am contemplating a shift in my life to earlier in the day. Period. We shall see what happens next…

Post-a-day 2020

Yess!

I have made it back to an approximate 20% body fat measurement. That is a huge celebration of satisfaction for me. I have been without a gym, essentially, for half a year now. Going from an average of four or five days a week of intense workouts and weight training at the gym to home workouts with almost no weights, and then to no gym to give workouts and support at all has been a lot this year for me. I definitely did not maintain my same fitness level from before the changes, and I had still been in a sort of recovery period from the adventures of traveling in culture and foods and not-much-exercise in Japan and The Philippines. So, I wasn’t even in my best condition when everything started closing. I was probably around 18% or 19% body fat then.

I have always struggled with doing things on my own – thus the gym membership, and the workout buddy who signed up with me, at my behest. So, the workout situation has been nowhere near where I have wanted it to be in the past six months, during which time I have had to manage it all on my own, alone. I have been slowly working toward following the diet I truly want to follow and being as active and as fit as I truly want to be. Part of those have been working toward being autonomous in, well, all of them. Interesting how I hadn’t quite ever put words and solid thoughts to that idea until just now, but those words ring as true. So, I have been focusing on a very slow process of adjusting my daily life to be closer and closer to that life I want to be leading. I have no one other than myself for leaning, so balance and thought and true consideration and evaluation are all key in this.

I had worked my way down to an approximate 16% body fat, back a year ago in October/November. Keep in mind that, though this is a rather low number for the average woman, for my body’s makeup, it is actually still an entirely safe and healthy percentage. Much lower would be unnecessary, though. However, even at that 16% body fat, I still had areas of gathered fat on which I was working to release, mostly in my hips and legs. Also, to get myself even to that point was a very, very intense yet extremely gratifying journey, for which I am entirely grateful. I had never really believed that I could be at that level of fitness in my life, and definitely not at this age. Now that I have been there, I have experienced the real ness of such a possibility for me. And I want to have myself back in that space and living. However, this time will be through the breakthrough of autonomy for my own exercise and fitness. That way, I am ready and able to maintain it going forward, no matter if a gym closes or I move houses or towns or countries – I can always be at the level of fitness that I and my body want me to be, such that I can best serve the world while I am in it in this body and life.

Post-a-day 2020

Progress

I think I have worked out some of the concern around my exercise and desperate motivations. Unfortunately, it is ridiculously hot these days, so it is looking as though my only logical option is to get up for the now-imaginary 5:15am classes again on the weekdays for my regular. Of course, it is almost midnight right now, but I have a laser hair removal session in the morning, so I won’t be able to work out in the afternoon – morning is my only option tomorrow.

Here’s to hoping I make it happen! ❤

Post-a-day 2020