I’m hiding behind everyone else’s struggle. I am the coward in the crowd. Hiding in the open, behind a pretty mask. While I drive around with my positive signs that shout out, in colorful bubble letters “have a great day”, I am not sure that I am even allowing myself to be honest with the person inside the car who made those signs. I write letters, make phone calls, and look for rainbows. “Oh, yes”, I say. “Thank you for sharing and being so strong”, “you’re not alone” I say, but I kind of need to call ‘bullshit’ on myself. I’m right in it with you and I haven’t been real about it.
You are being brave and I am being selfish about it. What I should have said is “thanks for sharing so I don’t have to”. Isn’t that what I mean? Is it possible that the purveyor of positivity is having a difficult time, just like everyone else? No kidding. I don’t want to be vulnerable anymore. I worked so hard to come from a place of strength. I don’t want to be sensitive and emotional. I feel like I have spent most of my life being that. I feel as if my emotional guts are written on the proverbial bathroom walls, for all to see. I want to feel that I have moved past that. Now, I am back to worrying about things I can’t control; my parents, my siblings, my auto-immune sensitive friends, how this virus will impact business, jobs, & lives. This leads me to a dark place, an endless pit of negativity that is full of items to explore.
We are healthy and not at all in good health. Everything is fine and far from it. We are ok and not at all ok.
Before the Shelter in place order began, I was in the middle of taking my victory lap. The culmination of two decades of hard work and sacrifice had started to finally pay off. We had just moved to a new home, my business is the success that I have always envisioned, and I was finding some sort of balance with home and work life. In addition, I had shed about 42 pounds of raw, unfiltered depression from the loss of one of our identical twins. That weight loss was a journey in and of itself, and a victory on it’s own. It was also a gateway to better adventures at the gym.
We saw it coming and had prepared somewhat, but March 25th, 2020 came with a shockingly cold, hard smack in the face: The Shutdown. I sat in my final closing that morning with “safe distance” and gloves on, wondering what my world was turning into. Still smiling from introductions and greetings, the closing began and so did my mind. I had so many questions; when would I sit at a closing table with clients and colleagues again, how would we manage all of these new expectations with these new limitations in place, am I capable of homeschooling my second grader, are we prepared enough, how long will this be going on?
A few more trips to the office and Costco collecting needed items and then I felt kind of ok. I settled in to start to try to figure it out, when another wave of panic hit me. How will I manage and maintain my fitness!? I’ve put in the work, but I know I didn’t get there on my own!
Everyone’s idea of luxury is different. My Gym has always been my happy place. It’s a luxury for me, to afford this time and self care to put back into myself. An investment in my future self as well as my calm presence. It is a place that I can have success everyday. It is a place where nothing else matters for an hour. I can let go for just that time. I can change my goal posts and make each day my best, for that day. I challenge myself to be better than yesterday and I accomplish long term goals through hard work, practice and awesome coaching. To me, that is a luxury that I enjoy and appreciate as often as possible.
It is a high like I have never felt before. And yes, Crossfit is totally a cult. For 5 years, I have pushed myself into this position of being an endurance athlete, with all of my toys and friends, existing in this “Box” down the street. This community that someone else built, had started to mean so much to me. Now, it was suddenly and decidedly closed. I felt bereft. Naked, lost. The foundation of my stability was wavering. The barbells that helped me heal were being locked behind closed doors. Socially isolated, from me.
This is a time to make it work. To figure it out, to do what is healthy and feels good. It is a time to be ok with imperfection and substitutions. It is a good time to slow down and think. To make good choices, to be the best me, that today allows.
My community didn’t abandon me. We made it work. They showed me how to keep on, how to continue and how to make it work with what I have, even with my kid. They opened my eyes to seeing what I CAN do. Now that I need my fitness more than ever, I am finding ways to adapt, I am finding patience that I didn’t realize was there. I am digging deep and finding peace when I need to. There are a lot of deep breaths for no reason. There are a lot of hard days when nothing went wrong. There is also a lot of success that would never have happened otherwise. It’s been a hell of a journey, for one month.
At first, I was doing so great. I cleared a room in my house and used what I had to get my heart rate up and get sweaty. I was super motivated to push through to the other side and get through this. Besides, it was just going to be a couple weeks, maybe a few at the most, “we got this”. I did my work during the day, played teacher, housewife, Realtor, friend, mom, and “managed” really well. I was exhausted at night and tired when I woke up, but I was doing it. I was stressed and full of fear and anxiety. I worried that when the teacher would check in, I would somehow be operating below expectations or my child would admit that we ate Lucky Charms for breakfast that day. Nothing valid or relevant.
When school was canceled and the order extended, I felt all of that fire to push myself, just die. Poof. Empty. I don’t give up easy, so I rallied. With a good push from some great people, including my award wining husband, I made myself accountable by recording my workouts and sharing with my group. I did some challenges from friends and tried to carve out my private time each day or so. I tried to focus on what I was wiling to do. Hearing “ I don’t want to run today” like a whiny teenager in my head was not sitting well with me, At. All. Ok, I don’t want to run, can I jump? Can I dance or just move? And I went from there. Saying yes where I could and just doing it. Each “at home” workout was worth the effort to take the first step. The demons would subside and I could push through another day. Nothing is pretty about the way I workout. My life is chaotic, honest, and unpolished. No filter.
This is not a time to be self conscious or judgmental. This is a time to talk pretty, share, understand, and emote together. It’s confusing, scary and unexplored, these feelings, this…situation. I’ve seen more strong people step up and express their pain in a public way than would have ever been seen as acceptable prior to 2020. That tells me more than anything that what I am feeling is not futile.
As days stretched to weeks, it became harder to carve out the space and time in the day. With so many hats to wear and everyone directing me to Zoom and FaceTime and various educational websites, apps, alternatives, modifications and adaptations. The exhaustion became a force of its own. The inefficiency of what life had become weighed me down in silence, with its de-motivation and lack of empathy. I was not able to get my private alone time. How can one have solitude living in chaos with barbarians? I realized that to survive, to thrive, I would need to adapt, modify and adjust further. I invited my 8 year old to work out with me. Not because he is into it, or wanted to, not because he is athletic or even cooperative. He needs it as much as I do. We don’t have enough space, or the right equipment and I am certainly not capable of doing this properly, but we are doing it.
This is not a time for perfection. This is not at time for filters and photoshop. This is a time to be real. An opportunity to be honest, open and raw. I need this. I need to know that my neighbors are hurting like me. I need to know that this funk, this dark place threatening to take over is not attacking discriminately. I feel so alone, even though we keep reassuring each other that we are not.
My motivation has always been a light within myself. A force that needs to get out, and go. It’s a constant stream of light and power that makes me shine from within. I’ve never needed someone to tell me that I can or to believe in me. If I want something, I work for it. Now, that light is struggling. That force is disabled, dull and weak.
I’ve never felt I had to lean on people like this before. Perhaps that was always a pretty lie that I told myself. Perhaps that motivation, that force that I always felt came from me, never came from me at all. Perhaps it was always you that lights up my insides and pushes me to be my best self. Whatever it is, it’s missing, and I feel aimless mostly. I am not coming from a place of strength. I am coming from a place of uncertainty, anxiety and a stress that has no identity.
This is not a time to have a major break through or accomplish a really tough mental goal. This is already a tough mental goal. This is the major break through that we are trying to accomplish.
I’d like to show you only the best parts of me. I would love to be able to show you the person that I am working toward instead of this flawed, hot mess that I am. But that would discredit the struggle, the battle, the work, inside and outside myself, that has given me the passion to stay consistent. Struggling everyday to keep pushing in that direction, To maintain all that I have worked for; mind, body and soul.
My goal for quarantine is to maintain. I have no goals to do anything more than what I have been doing. Keep us safe, healthy and strong.
Here is 30 days of making it work. Here is 30 days of my struggle, trying my best every day. Here is a story that shows what everyone in the world is trying to do right now. This is less than ideal. This is not perfection. This is life, this is unfiltered and raw. This is me doing my best with no excuses and no shame. This is me without the appropriate equipment/attire/attitude/space. This is me trying to make it all work, trying to find balance, trying to be at peace, to relax on myself and my family. Here is 30 days of staying committed and consistent.
Special thanks to my husband who makes everything possible, doable and so much fun.
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