the cereal is the prize

Hey pilgrims,

Today, I lifted weights. After completing the task-at-hand on Monday, and opting for a rest & recovery day on Tuesday – Today I ventured back into the gym and if I’m being completely honest, I felt a little directionless & lost in contrast to the training program I’ve been completely nailed-to over the past 12 weeks.

It wasn’t a sad occasion, and I did make the best of it with a back-&-triceps workout the likes of which my body had not seen in some time, and I approached the given time with an attitude of ‘every action I do today is an action that would not have happened if I’d stayed home;’ however, there was an atmosphere of melancholy as I stepped up to the weight bench and the various cable-pulley machines I utilized that made me feel like this workout was some sort of placeholder until I develop a new program.

In truth, that’s essentially what it was.

But there’s a process that athletes and musicians alike feel after accomplishing a momentous task or a great offering of energy that is something like a hangover. Sort of a grieving of the job well done, for lack of a better term, coupled with the slow regaining of bearings that leaves us in a directionless frame of mind.

It’s not problematic, but it deserves attention.

I reconciled my thoughts with the notion that the entire western world, save for a few outliers, are feeling that way as we all leave the Christmas holiday season in the rear view and bear down on New Year’s. That big illustrious do-over that tells us that things will be different in the new year, but until then we’re free to wallow in our own… humanity, for lack of a more appropriate term.

This time of melancholy reflection is part of the process and it deserves the space it holds between the end of one thing and the beginning of the next. It exists in the same place as the waking hours between rolling out of your nice warm bed and putting your lips up to a hot cup of coffee, before cognizance rushes in and the social contracts of the day snap us to attention.

This is a time we can focus on self care.
I just hope that self care is really what you’re doing, when self harm looms at every corner, cleverly disguised as a good time.

Happy New Year, pilgrims.