Bittersweet Successes

AMRAP 6. 12 air squats, 10 sit ups, 8 push ups, 6 burpees.

It was six minutes designed to be the first taste of CrossFit style workout programming for the newbs on their first day, and I don't think I've ever sweat so much in so short an amount of time. Three rounds won't set the world on fire (the 95 degree facility handled that for me), but it was a decent little start and it feels like I'm gonna get hooked.

Day 1 complete. I've spent the last two weeks off of my normal bodybuilding plan and stretching/strengthening some weak points that I knew full well were gonna be exposed by this new training style. They were still exposed, but my ab didn't re-tear and my hip didn't explode again and damnit I'm calling that successful.

Most importantly, that felt instantly more my style than all the globo-gyms I've tried in the past. None of the prissy tvs on every treadmill, light pop playing in the background, wood floors and froufrou fucking locker rooms. This is a big hot warehouse with chalk and sweat all over the black rubber mat flooring and rock blasting over the speakers. The die hards were easily spotted by their telltale ripped builds and sleeve tattoos. The coach of the intro course, also the owner of the gym, dropped a few f bombs into her “welcome” speech.

Oh yeah. This works much better for me.

Gonna be several months of struggle. I've got a lot of work to do with my core and hips and some general conditioning before I'm able to even start keeping up with the regulars. But that's almost a relief. I'm the new guy. I'm not supposed to know anything. I'm not supposed to be any good. It's okay to struggle. That's a far cry from seeing myself as the guy who knows what he's doing and, consequently, frees me up to drop the ego and get back to the basics.

Day 1 in the books and I'm even more excited than I was before.

Has anything else been happening? I feel like I've been mostly in a holding pattern waiting for this to start up.

I got my bougie $2000 king bed and… Jesus I could get used to this nice furniture thing I've started. A single side panel for this thing weighs more than the entire previous bedframe did. Solid wood, no wobble or flex in it. It's a proper height for me, not the low ones I always kept to make it easy for Vally to hop up and down. And, best of all, two dudes showed up in a truck, hauled all the pieces up my stairs, and built the damn thing for me. Even put the mattress back on top. I wouldn't mind getting used to this.

Since I suddenly have four extra large drawers under the bed I turned around and started a full reorganization of my clothes storage which became a weekend spent pulling things out of the closet to be tossed or given away. I got rid of four trash bags full. Cripes. I spent an extra $150 on matching wooden clothes hangers so I could get rid of all the old “came with the t shirt” plastic ones making the closet feel cheap and disorganized. Did it all up right, and suddenly I have a functional walk in closet again. Got rid of old pitted out dress shirts, medium sized t shirts that I'll likely never fit in again, and stuff that was given to me and never worn but kept out of a vague sense of obligation. Feels good. I know the culture focuses heavily on acquiring things, and that can certainly be a nice brief satisfying sensation, but getting rid of shit you no longer need or didn't really want in the first place is just as good and highly underrated.

Oh and I finally got to move the whips, paddles, floggers, cuffs, and other questionables to a hidden drawer on the far side of the bed partially blocked by a nightstand. Instead of just the bottom drawers of one of my dressers. That was always a time bomb waiting to happen. A niece poking around the room opens the wrong drawer and… oops? Less of a concern now. Good.

I finally got episode 4 up on the channel. Took forever. I added a LOT of sight gags to spice the thing up. I literally animated an unmarked creeper van into some moving gameplay footage for a joke of questionable quality. Took about an hour and a half for that one alone. I spent another hour modifying a multi scene edit of the grand finale scene from Caddy Shack. Will anybody ever see it? Likely not. It'll be a miracle if they ever hit 50 views. But it hardly matters, really. I've found it's fun to put them together and that I'm pretty good at it. Not going to put pressure on myself to dedicate a bunch of time to it like I did the first few rounds, but I'll keep plugging away as the mood strikes.

I think I've got a VR playthrough of the Outer Wilds coming up. Episode 1 just about done. It's a solo game, so I have to carry the thing by myself. No goofy banter back and forth to fill time. But for a first attempt I think it came out remarkably watchable. I was in the zone that day. Now I just need to figure out how to do it again for episode 2.

Ah well. There's very little pressure when nobody watches. I'll give it a go and it'll be what it will be.

Had Broder's birthday shindig last Friday. It was at a local petting farm that brings in beer trucks and food trucks and a band once a month and becomes a big outdoor event where you can also pet rabbits or whatever, so naturally I was the most excited to go hang out with some piglets.

The place was absolutely packed, and about 20 people showed up for the party. I was… hesitant. Not feeling great myself, I haven't been out trying to mingle in any real capacity in… well… okay well exactly, and so the whole thing had my introvert mindset a little trepidatious going into it. But I showed up because best friend’s birthday and piglets and you know what?

I had a blast. It was fantastic. I felt great. I was bouncing from group to group, getting laughs wherever I went. If I sat contemplating the llamas for a bit on my own other people from the group would come up and initiate conversation and we'd joke and chat. Went from 6pm to 2am around a fire pit back at the house and could have kept going. It was… it felt human. Like I brought something to the table and was a valid member of the group. It probably shouldn't be a revelation to feel that way, but… ya know… it's been a hell of a few years here.

I've been trying to put my finger on what went so right that evening. Why was I suddenly a successful social butterfly, where so many times in the past I felt out of place and awkward? Two items come to mind.

First - I'm so deeply engrained in this idea that I need to get myself right before I attempt to find anything romantic that I'm not going into these situations hoping to be found attractive or impressive. I think I put that pressure on myself at times in the past and all it did was led to feeling like I had to be “on” all the time. Specifically after falling out of shape and not liking myself for so long. I felt like I was trying to somehow make up for what I'd lost and it put me on insecure ground. Recently I've just been approaching people as people with no hopes or expectations and I feel much more natural that way.

Second - I don't think I'm the introvert I've pretended to be for so long. I think I do much better with others time to time. Vally has just been my other for years and that was enough. When I had such a good fluffy friend to hang out with it scratched that itch, gave me another soul to vibe with, and I was happy. I would dread the commutes or largely solitary days at the office but be excited to get home to spend the evening with my wolf. Now, my days are almost entirely solitary, and I'm actively charged up and looking forward to getting out around others again.

That's a strange realization for me. Such a big part of my identity for years has been this lone wolf introvert, but it just doesn't seem to be the case. There were depressed years spent in my condo alone trying to get fit to feel better and wondering if I'd ever have friends to celebrate my birthdays again. I spent a lot of time alone then, but mostly because I didn't have anyone to spend it with, and any talk I made to the contrary was just an attempt to save face. Broder and I started exercising and hanging together, finding things out and about to do, and those were some of my happiest times. Then were the schooling years where ice queen was 5 hours away and I would just sit at my desk at work, then come home and sit at my kitchen table working on homework. More solo times, more unhappiness. I found Vally and she saved me from that.

Since then I started taking on the idea that I actually don't need others because I was genuinely pretty happy. Women would come and go and it wouldn't have too big an impact on me. But now I can see that that's because I had my wolf. She was the completion I needed to be happy. Now I find myself in a situation much more akin to the other lonely times, hence the sudden newfound enjoyment I get from hanging out with people.

I will say, I'm still proud of myself here. Even before I could quite enunciate the subconscious motivators I was taking steps to get myself out there again. Jumping in and taking the risks. It hasn't been an easy change for me, but it's been one that I knew I needed to go after and I'm doing it. I'm even thinking about signing up for one of the local group tennis lessons in the fall. Always considered it, why not now?

With all this positivity, there's still a part of me genuinely sad about all this. Somewhere, buried, I'm well aware that this is me moving on from Valentine. And while I know that's what I have to do, it's still not what I want to be doing. Not my first choice. There are so many good things that may come of this but all of it is rooted in this monumental loss that I still haven't quite come to terms with. Not completely, at least. So while I went to sleep last night thinking positive excited thoughts about today's class, there were still tears on my pillow.

For the last several years, whenever I would accomplish something difficult - an extra long run, or a big promotion, or some Xbox achievement that I had spent hours chasing - I would instinctively turn to her and celebrate. “I did it, pretty wolf!” The same way a kid would turn to a parent, or an athlete to a coach. When we’re proud of ourselves, we naturally turn to those that we feel helped us get there. Vally was that to me. Even without any concept of Xbox achievements she would always recognize the joy in my tone, and I would always recognize that these accomplishments were made so much more meaningful with her there at my side. Always at my side. Always supporting.

Well little wolf, I'm accomplishing the things. I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone to get where I need to be and I'm really proud of where I am in spite of all I've been up against in the last two years. But none of it feels quite as good without you here supporting me. Even though I know you would swim across the ocean to be here with me if you could.

So the energy and effort I'm putting into getting better isn't for me, pups. It's for us. For all the love and support you showed me when I couldn't show it to myself. You helped me get to a place where I could do these things, and then you left to give me the room to do them. I hope that I can keep getting better to honor that support you gave me. And I hope, somewhere and somehow, you can still sense me turning to look for you every time I'm proud of myself.

Miss you, pretty wolf. Somehow more than ever.

-M