Feelings. Nothing more than Feelings.
Another week? Sure. I mean, I guess so.
This marks the first week where imposter syndrome is starting to wear off at the crossfit box. Most people that show up in and around the 5:30 class seem to know my name. I successfully identified Veronica vs Lauren yesterday (in retrospect, while they share high level bullet point features like height and complexion and hair style, they don’t really look alike). Most importantly, I feel like I finally connected with the two workouts so far this week. Middle to upper middle of the road in the scaled men’s scores. I hit a not at all braggable but also not so embarrassing 325lbs on deadlifts Monday which, considering I was worried about my hip holding together two months ago, ain’t too shabby.
Coaches are great and consistently give me really helpful feedback on my form that keeps me from feeling like the weight might be getting away from me. Coming into this I was worried about having people constantly watching and critiquing my form or output or ability, but it’s been a non-issue after the initial adjustment. The atmosphere is super supportive, free of judgement, scaling down weights or movements is encouraged to keep workouts just a hair outside everybody’s individual comfort zones. I still have a lot of work to do on my overhead bar stability, but I’m confident it will come in time. Just gotta keep plugging away.
No immediate “holy shit” changes to my body from it, but at six weeks that seems pretty reasonable. It’s not like I’ve made any drastic nutrition changes, or even been going more than three times a week yet. A few lbs down. I’m definitely a little stronger, so there’s a bit of muscle gain masking any fat burn weight loss. Clothes seem to be fitting a little better. I’m comfortably going for a 3-4 mile cooldown walk on my own afterwards, whereas that was difficult after the first few classes. I’m doing my best to generally ignore all of this and focusing on learning the movements and building that strength foundation I need to push on. At 6 months or so, February or March, I’ll take off the blinders and get a better feel for how these long term personal metrics are doing.
I went on Thursday with a bunch of members to a business competition at the local college. Woman-run businesses in town were competing with their Shark Tank styled business pitches regarding what they can bring to the community and the CEO/Head Coach of the gym had made it into the final six out of 40 or so. So there we were. Some 80 people in a small college auditorium watching women pitch their businesses. About half of those people from the gym to support our coach. 90% of us were wearing matching gym shirts. It was a rout. Polite applause for the other 5 pitches, raucous support and standing ovations from us for Coach. The $500 prize determined by voting was a forgone conclusion, but she also ended up winning the big $5000 main prize as well. While I do think her pitch delivery was better than the rest, I can’t help but feel like the judges knew they’d have a situation if she DIDN’T win. It must have helped, at least.
It felt good to be there. Part of a group representing ourselves to the community. I’m still very much a new guy - wearing masks and street clothes I’m pretty sure had some people trying to figure out who I was - but I got some good conversations in with the people I know best from classes and got in on the group photos and was a part of it. I don’t think my personality lends itself to marching into a group and making a big impression all at once, but I’m pretty happy to just keep showing up to these events. Even if I’m sort of on the perimeter for a lot of it, I’m definitely slowly building the number of people that are familiar with me. What’s more, it felt good to go support someone I know. I remember being forced to spend weekends going out to events for my sisters when I was a kid. “C’mon M Hollywood has another ballet recital”. I didn’t always love it then. But after all this time doing things solo and for myself, it was nice being there for someone else.
Anyways… In other news.
I had an email chain going back and forth with Graphics Girl at work last week. She came out of nowhere with “random question - you single?”. For the second time, she’s attempting to line me up for a blind date with someone she knows. The first time, it was with some girl from her Jazzercise class. She showed me a picture of the girl with the fake tan and fake lips and fake eyelashes and fake tits and…. well let’s just say I politely declined. This time her description was “My friend’s younger sister that’s really hot, super sweet, and trains dogs for sports”.
Me: “…. you had me at dog sports…”
Picture came in of a very attractive blonde girl on a trail in the woods somewhere, leaves strewn about, surrounded by five dogs. Five. A few border collies, a pit pull, and a petite little mutt-looking beastie. Oooookay. Welp…
I called on Wednesday. Left a voicemail. Figured that’d leave a bit stronger a first impression than just shooting a text over, but one person’s assertive is another person’s trying too hard so you never really know. She eventually texted back. Slow conversation has been building, with a few texts back and forth a day and then long pauses. Not super exciting, really, but then I’m still not positive that I even want it to go somewhere at this point. Maybe at some point if she sees pictures of me or decides to meet up somewhere it’ll be worth trying a little more, but right now I’m at a place where I won’t be chasing if she goes a few days without responding. Kind of fun to have that in the background anyway. Not sure what it says that Graphics Girl has repeatedly tried to hook me up with her friends. Does that mean I’m the most eligible bachelor she recommends to friends who ask, or does it mean she pities me and is trying to help? A little of each, maybe? Whatever.
More specialist doctor visits last week. Really trying to iron out all these lingering and new symptoms I keep running into, and hoping to do so without falling into the existential crisis funk that keeps hitting me when I start having to consider possible causes of mystery symptoms. I decided I’d try to get a general checkup at my awful primary doc so I could ask for a full panel. Check thyroid levels (since it’s been 8 months and my endo checkup isn’t until January), check liver values (because who knows at this point), check all of it. I called. My primary doc office has no checkup appointments with any of their docs until fucking FEBRUARY. Are. you. KIDDING ME. I took it as my motivation to finally switch primary docs. I did some research on doctors in the area. Narrowed the search to two. One, a female, works as a primary care doc but focuses on endocrinology, which seems helpful given my circumstances. She also states that her primary interest is helping obese patients make lifestyle changes to help with chronic issues. While I’m certainly not obese, I do subscribe to lifestyle changes over medications when possible. So that seemed like a winner… and then I found that she’s actually the wife of Trump’s personal doctor while he was in the white house. Not the long haired as seen on TV guy, but the military dude that came after him. Should that give me pause? I don’t know. But, combined with some reviews saying that she’s closed minded when dealing with patients and their wishes, it did.
So I continued my search. I found a very well reviewed older Chinese man that’s been practicing in town for 25 years. Great feedback. Doing his initial study in Hong Kong almost gave me pause, but I got over it quickly. I called his office. I talked to a secretary about the practice for a bit. Then I explained what I wanted, why I was looking to switch primary docs, and that I’d like to schedule that check up if possible. She hesitated before telling me that this doc was booked out until at least February as well.
… what the hell is going on?
Ultimately I just wound up calling my endo specialist and requesting an order for a full panel workup. Went into a lab and got the draw done on Thursday. At least that will accomplish most of what I want, assuming I can get someone to look at the results. I still need to sort out the primary care doc situation. And whether or not I actually need the minor procedure that last week’s new specialist recommended.
Oy. Health problems are the worst.
Oh! Shorty messaged me the other day and mentioned that the stupid little music video short I created got some 1200+ views on Youtube! Which, yes, I know, is less than a fraction of a drop in the bucket in the world of Youtube views, but shit. We’re somewhere in the 10-50 views for each of the other episodes. This was my attempt to rework the music video scene I did for those Youtube Shorts that the system is trying to push to compete with TikTok. Less than a minute, vertical format. I had to adjust a bunch of the animations to fit with the new aspect ratio, but it was a challenge and I didn’t know how to properly create those shorts so I tried it and uploaded it for the hell of it and… man. I don’t know. Maybe I need to dream bigger, but for someone that hasn’t had a social media presence in forever, 1200 people watching a thing I created seems like a hell of a lot. I record songs and share them with 3-4 people. I put in all the work on my house and share it with the 10-15 total people who have ever visited. 1200 is clearly not going to swing any channel rankings or subscriber counts or anything that people would typically consider “success” on the platform, but it’s plenty to make me happy that I put the time in. 40 some people actually clicked Like on the dumb thing! That’s… I dunno.
I made a thing. I shared a thing. 1200 people looked at the thing and at least a decent chunk of them enjoyed it. That’s pretty gratifying. Hopefully it’ll power me through another couple of episodes. Or at least through the end of this one so I can start editing together our Valheim footage.
Anything else happening? I’m sleeping in the guest room because it tends to be cooler than my Master bedroom. Felt like it would be a big change, but that’s just habits acting as an anchor. When it’s only me here in the house, it’s not like I’m impacting or upsetting the habits of anyone else. There was a moment this morning where it occurred to me that I could just be passing out on the floor of whatever room I get tired in and nobody would ever know or care. All just custom and tradition that says one place is for sleeping. Well… and specialized furniture I guess…
Been playing Hades since it came to Xbox. It’s good. I figured it would be, being another from Supergiant Games that won a ton of Game of the Year awards, and I’m glad it’s living up to all the hype. I THINK I’m starting to understand the layers that exist there. It’s fun having watched Greg Kasavin on Gamespot for some years way back in the day, and then having watched him transition over to writing some of the most clever games of the last 10 years. Will definitely keep at it.
Ordered a bunch more of those nicer workout shorts. One of which are black with stars and stripes up the side, because ‘murrica. Does that fit my personality at all? No. Did I do it anyway? For sure. Threw in a pair of pants this time too. Gearing up for winter workouts.
A month and a half out from my tattoo appointment, and I’m back to thinking that I’m gonna get the full wrap-around collar on my forearm to go with the paw prints on my chest/shoulder. I still have the occasional doubts, but I think my mindset continues to shift towards “fuck it” mode. I actually find myself figuring that the collar arm could be a decent canvas for future tattoos. Something up my tricep. Something on the outside of the elbow. I think I’m so fucking tired of being reserved and calculated and cautious that I’m looking for ways to break out of that and just start going for things. Will the full collar there on my forearm be the best possible place for it? The best possible arrangement of it? Will I come up with a better idea the moment it’s done and I get out of the chair? Maybe. But I’m tired of letting perfection get in the way of things I want to do. Still time to think about it, but I’m starting to like the idea of just going for it and letting the consequences sort themselves out later.
Really starting to think about finally getting some time off work. Not including the few days I took off when Vally passed, it’s been almost a year since I took a single day off work. Last October, to be specific. Can’t imagine that that’s helping general stress levels. A full two-week break will be needed soon. Maybe I’ll go somewhere. Find a cabin, or dust off my tent and go back to my favorite camping spot on the Potomac.
Ok that’s plenty. I need to get some sleep here. Signed up for 8:30am class tomorrow, a Sunday, and morning weightlifting presents a whole new set of challenges. Another week of intense exercise, stressful health shit, dancing around a stop-and-go conversation with another dog person, and maybe even some days where I feel good and can relax. Maybe. I hope. Eventually.
I had this minor epiphany the other day. I have been a slave to my feelings of late. Depression, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, stress, they’ve all managed to change my mood pretty drastically in the last two years. And for good reason - I’ve had an unbelievable amount of heavy shit hitting me without any sort of support system to back me up. Beaten down from all sides in a lot of ways. It’s repeatedly gotten in the way of things I’m trying to accomplish. Goals I want to achieve for myself. I was having a day where I felt run down and sluggish and generally sick, something I’ve gotten used to having once or twice most weeks now, and it made me want to curl up in bed with ice cream rather than go to my crossfit class. But I pulled myself together, went anyway, and actually wound up feeling better by the end. Which is when I realized just how fleeting feelings can be. How fast moods can change. And, as a result, how unimportant the way I feel right now will be a week from now. Or a month from now. Or a year from now. Bad feelings, be they physical or emotional, are real and they need to be dealt with, but they do not matter tomorrow. The actions from today will matter tomorrow. I’ve been trying hard to focus on that. Channel that. No matter how I’m feeling right now, I need to keep moving forward. Some days I’ll feel good and it’ll be easy. Some days I’ll feel like shit and it’ll prove really fucking hard. But I can’t let feelings determine whether or not I follow through on my goals each day. Steady progress regardless. Keeping after it. A week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now, I’ll look back and be glad I wasn’t a slave to all these bad feelings.
-M
