When I am at the gym, moving heavy things around, I am at war with myself. I get caught up in the fight against exhaustion and self doubt, against my slow metabolism and my desk-job, against my body and that little voice in the back of my mind that says I don't have to be here; I can just put that heavy **** down and go away, go anywhere I want, go anywhere but here, because anywhere must be easier than this.
I get so caught up in the present that I don't even remember those choices exist as such; they fade only to impressions in my mind like the glimpse of a color just outside my peripheral vision. My entire consciousness becomes a single point in time and the struggle is to continue or to quit, to become better or to become worse. Each rep becomes my existence, each set a lifetime to contemplate the battle.
When I finish my routine I slowly make my way to the locker room to clean up; and as I stand there in the shower, slowly coming back to myself, sore and tired and nearly broken, I being to smile.
The war with myself is never over, but each day that I go and give everything I have in the gym is another day that I'm winning.
(Nov 2013)