She is 15 going on 30 and determined to start driving yesterday so she tells me she needs me to take her seriously and help her get everything she needs for her permit.
We’re at the gym and for a moment she watches me stretch and then she is gone, off to do her thing without me.
She doesn’t see me staring at the high school boys who watch her walk across the room. Nor does she catch me carry some weights that are well beyond their capabilities past them.
It is silly on my part, but I look for whatever motivation I can find to push me to go harder at the gym.
I look forward to going to the gym with her because I know how fast the time will go and that sooner than I like she’ll be off and running to college and I will wonder how she grew over night from a baby to a young woman.
To the right of me there is a father and daughter but he is probably 20 years older than I am and she is close to my age.
When she walks away he smiles and tells me he remembers when his little girl was truly little.
“They grow up too quickly. I remember when she would sit on my shoulders to see the animals at the zoo.”
I nod my head and tell him the reason I am curling is to stop the earth from turning so my kids stop aging and he laughs.
One of the regulars at the gym asks me what my secret is for getting stronger.
I ask him to be more specific and he tells me I lift some pretty heavy weights.
“It is all relative. I can’t lift like I used to but I feel ok about what I do. Definitely getting stronger, but I have been doing a variation of the same workout for 35 years so there is much to say for muscle memory.
Genetics play a big role too. Lifting heavy is easy for me, but what I really need to do is focus more on adjusting my diet and turning myself into a wiry version of me.”
He nods his head and we go back and forth some more about ideas and exchange suggestions.
If I knew him well and trusted him I might tell him this particular moment in time is more challenging and the biggest challenge for me is trying to accept what I can and cannot do.
There are a million things I can’t control and about five that I can so in some ways it is easier to apply my focus upon areas in which I can see steady progress.
Three weeks ago I decided to see if I could increase the amount I can curl by 50 percent in a month.
Was more than pleased today to see that I am up by 25% and even better it is comfortable. It makes me wonder if maybe I am even closer than I realize but I don’t push it because I am not sure where the invisible line exists.
Ya know that one that moves directly from progress to pain that may not be a serious injury but is annoying because it is the nagging kind that sticks around for far too long.
This annoys me as much if not more than anything because the one person I ought to be able to rely implicitly upon is me and yet I can’t.
At least not like I used to because though the threshold for pain is high there is no award given for the fool who pushes past the red line just because he can.
So I do a little soft shoe up to where I think I that line might be and back away from it hoping to not cross it and simultaneously to screw off just because.
There are better posts and more interesting to share, write and tell but this probably isn’t one of them.
Jumped on the elliptical and turned on this song and tried to maintain a breakneck pace for the entirety of the song.
Can’t pump as hard as I want for as long as I want but if I take it down a notch I can go long enough and put myself in a position to do it again.
And that is the goal, to build of the past successes and pyramid my way towards that next plateau.
Seems to be working…maybe.
