It’s before 7 on a Saturday morning. The naive plan was, I’d get up and go swimming. I’m up. My body tells me I’m a fucking fool. Sleep, it says.
So, I’m going to. I’ll go back to bed in a few. And I’m all right with that.
The reality is, though, that I’m starting to realize between last night and today, just how much this not-working-out thing is killing and deadening my soul.
It’s worse than not getting laid. Far, far worse.
It gets the endorphins rushing, it charges me up, makes me feel alive, gives me a monstrous sense of accomplishment, and when it comes to cycling, well, I just fucking love it.That part’s just all quality-of-life.
I would give anything for the feeling of being absolutely spent the good old-fashioned way, through an intense workout.
On average, I’m pretty content these days, but more often than not, I’m noticing that I’m high-strung,  impatient, overthinking, frustrated. Yada, yada, yada.
Luckily, I had myself a little reminder last night of why that might be. I was about to snap last night for no good reason, and thought, “HEY, it’s too windy, but it just got sunny. Two hours daylight left, I’m going cycling!”
Well, once I got on the bike, I realized my back’s still pretty tender as a result of its recent episode, so I lowered my goals, and efforts, tremendously. I wound up cycling only a paltry 5 kilometres and 25 minutes. (I’m used to 25-30km days.)
But… when I got back, even though I’d barely broken a sweat and had to reduce my workout to be on the “safe” side, my mood had improved 100%.
Seriously. POOF. All better.
I think I fail to realize, even now, just how much I came to become a person who thrived off of feeling accomplished and spent last year. I loved a monster cycling day. I love the feeling of bone-riddled exhaustion that comes from DOING something. This is true of sex, too. It’s about pushing yourself to that place. Connecting being with doing and seeing an effort through to its sweaty climax.
It’s awesome.
And my life has lacked both for months. When I’m working out and not getting laid, I’m all right. At least I have an outlet for the stresses. Right now, I’m having to be careful with exercise as I slowly dip a toe back into the pool of activity.
I have too much to lose to get injured again, but I have as much to lose from doing nothing.
Exercise makes me a better person. It makes me happier, more resilient, more driven. I’m more balanced mentally and emotionally, I’m confident and comfortable. I LIKE the girl who kicks ass on bikes and can go, go, go. She’s HAWT.
And I’m at my Slackage breaking point. I’m tired of feeling tired. I want a different kind of tired. 🙂
Sometime this week, I will try out swimming. That’s a goal. Just a half hour or so, see what’s what. I know what to look for now. I’ve been pushing myself a bit too hard when I was getting back into things last time. And look what that did for me.
I have to swallow my pride and not care how it looks when I stop working out after 30 minutes. If it’s all I can do, it’s all I can do. But at least it’s more than I’m doing now.
Something, anything, is a start. Walking is doing nothing for me, and is in fact not beneficial (can even be detrimental) to my back — yet this winter I’ve been stuck walking far more than I’ve walked in my life. It’s probably prolonged my injury, and I’ll be happy when I can cut it out and get back to using my scooter. I might heal faster.
Cycling I can do, in theory, though I find it tough right now. Swimming I can do, but the pools are all so out of my way that I don’t want the 10-25 blocks of walking plus obscure bus routes to get to them, so I’ve been waiting until I can scoot there. What I can’t do is: Well, pretty much everything else.
BUT.
I’m at the point where I can start phasing these things in. This is great. 🙂
It’ll be fantastic for my writing, though, and terrific for my friends. I’m overthinking everything these days. Friends are all laughing at me. Trying to indulge my overly serious, intense thoughtfulness, but they know as well as I do, I’m being a douchebag. Ha.
And you’d think overthinking is good for writing, but it’s not. I become a self-indulgent wanker if I go there too much. Good to know these things about yourself. [grin]
Today, I’ll pick no cycling goals. Today it’s not about where I go, but how I get there. I’ll just cycle slow and steady on hills, see what they do. Try to get far away enough that I can have at least one hair-whipping descent down a hill. Mm, going down.
Monday, I’m cutting my hair nice and short and punky again, my “getting serious about getting sweaty” look. I’m the anti-Samson. The shorter my hair gets, the freer I feel.
If I can get myself to accept that even a couple hours of mild cardio (a week) is enough to blow some of my existential steam off with, I might be able to relax and stop wanting the world in every single workout.
What can I say? I want it all. I’m that girl who thinks everything should be attainable. Problem, what problem? Restraint isn’t really my thing. Except if it’s attached to a bed, I guess.
I’m looking forward to seeing what I can manage on the bike today.
But, first, a nice extra dose of sleep.