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Adversity is like eating your vegetables; it can often be unpleasant and may even leave a bad taste in your mouth, but it makes you grow big and strong.
There’s nothing like getting interrupted on your path of positivity to a new and better you only to be thrown into a time reminiscent of the worst years of your life. A big reminder of from whence you’ve come can serve to recharge the batteries and fire up the will.
The last two weeks I’ve spent sprawled upon my back as my body rebelled against me for all the working out I’ve done this year — hours and hours of yoga, 1300+ kilometres of cycling, 40,000+ steps climbed in highrises, all since March, with much of the last three months interrupted by physical problems — have given me the opportunity to do a lot of thinking.
I’m still stuck in the whirlwind of mental processing that comes with change and turbulence for me, and while I can cut through it during a political rant, any kind of introspective writing has me hitting a lot of brick walls right now. It’s just how I roll.
After all, I’m still in the thick of the experience. I sit here with my low back suggesting I should take more pills, dreading the looming day before me where I shall have to confine myself at a desk, aka my back’s nemesis, for my first full day. I see many pills ahead of me.
I’m starting to heal, and with healing comes a return to routine, and a return to routine bears something unexpected: empowerment. It’s surprising how much just getting up and making breakfast with ease can affect your outlook on life. When all you know is struggle from your waking moment, it’s hard to see beyond the trials life presents you.
This is true of living in debt, living in injury, living in unhappiness. When you’re trapped by things you rail against, and that’s your life day-in, day-out, your perspective becomes similarly trapped.
I spent years that way, struggling with chronic pain. I’m far from it now, but these past two weeks have reminded me well of just how hard life was for five years in my late 20s. It reminds me of how much power and good I have in my life now.
I could sit around bitching about how much two weeks on my back inconvenienced me and made life hell, the reality is, I’ve been experiencing a lot of gratitude over just how far I’ve come in the past couple years.
Must be all the veggies and adversity. SuperSteff surely has had her fill.

PS: Despite being on my back, despite only having 3-4 weeks where I could work out since July 17th, thanks to a slew of physical issues in that time, I’ve not gained any of my 50 pounds back, and my jeans are even looser. Weird. 🙂