Denouement

Well, I’ve had a quiet week at home, for the most part. I went to church on Sunday, but since then, most of my time has been spent on my laptop in the living room, either reading articles and commenting, or writing out thoughts, or working on the few assignments I still have left for Harvard. I had an essay due on Wednesday which I spent most of Monday and Tuesday writing and revising; I think it turned out well, but my grade will have the final word. I finished my second Southwestern Seminary class with an A, but I still have to finish my take-home final for Harvard before I’m completely done.

What else have I been up to? I went shooting at the gun range yesterday, and I did better than I was expecting, which was pleasant. One of the men shooting came over to ask if I was police and tell me I shot well, so I couldn’t have been doing too badly. I don’t know what most people do with a free Saturday, but I drink a lot of tea and watch Iron Man with the dogs (they weren’t too impressed).

I’m having trouble typing at the moment because of the wrap around my wrist – I did something strange to it, not while lifting or kickboxing, but while attempting to walk the dogs. My parents were gone for a couple of days, so I ended up house-sitting and dog-sitting both their dog and my grandparents’ dog, who is staying with us for a while. Teek and I get along wonderfully: we play fetch and tag, and when he hears me wake up at 5:45 am he waits outside my door, unable to contain his excitement at the prospect of a run (he has to wait until I get back from the gym, though). Sweetie, on the other hand, surveys me coldly when I have the cheek to wake her up that early, and half the time has to be picked up and carried to wherever she needs to be (she’s a chihuahua, so the carrying isn’t that much trouble; it's trying to catch her that’s the problem). Still, we all get along alright.

I do head out to AnytimeFitness every morning to work out. They have 24-hour access (one would hope so, with ‘anytime’ in the title) and very nice equipment, and besides, I paid for a month’s access, and I want my cost-per-unit to go down. They have racks, a punching bag, and lots of machines to play with, but my favorite part is the fact that there’s next to no one there when I go in the mornings; the few of us that do show up have the place to ourselves. I’m not really on a workout program at the moment; I just come and try to sweat and groan for a little while, so I don’t feel like a cop-out the rest of the day.

I love working out, and the gym is great, but I still struggle to get up nearly every morning; if I hadn’t had to pay to have access to the gym, I’m not sure I would have the motivation to pull myself out of bed and across town to go lift weights. Every morning there is a piece of me that doesn’t want to go, that advocates for staying in bed and relaxing. But I’ve learned to listen to the other piece of me, the piece that knows I’ll be happy as soon as I’ve made up my mind to go, and I’ll be unhappy as soon as I choose to stay in bed. It’s very strange – the ‘treat yourself’ option would actually gain me nothing but frustration, and yet it’s still there every morning, acting as if it has something to offer.

That’s the way a lot of my life is, I suppose. I’m always going uphill, always trying to be challenged, always having to put in effort, not out of pure exploration and enjoyment (although those are definitely there, too), but because if I haven’t challenged myself, I’m unhappy, even if I’ve still done a perfectly good job. I’m only happy when I’ve made myself uncomfortable and overcome that, even though I all the time want to come back to my lowest-energy state. I’ll let you know if I ever figure out how all that works.

And of course, there’s the fact that I come out on the other side stronger – in the case of workouts, of course, physically stronger, but looking back on the last few years, stronger in many different ways. I have three more blogs after this, and then this blog will be over – if you want to keep up with me, you’ll have to check out my website or Facebook page *cough* if you haven’t yet this week… *cough*. I’ll probably spend the next few weeks considering how I’ve changed, but now that I’m on the other side, I’m glad I was driven to get up all those mornings, and to go off to college in parts unknown.

Pictures: So most of these are going to be of the dogs...

Well, and trees and sunlight. I really like trees and sunlight.

 Also trees and church steeples:

 He gets lonely in the backseat. Or he just wants to get away from the Chihuahua.

 At the gym all by my not-lonesome!

Not exactly Fresh Pond, but he hasn't died from drinking it, so I guess it's okay. After a couple of miles, he's about ready to drink anything.

An accurate account of walking the dogs: Teek is terribly interested in something off to the side (in this case a cat) and Sweetie is refusing to move (and when I tell her to 'come on,' Teek takes it to mean that he's not going fast enough). Teek generally wants to head directly to the right, Sweetie to the left, as far as they can go, and I'm in the middle trying to go forward with both my biceps flexed... it took forever just to get them close enough to take this picture.

 Success!

 She does like watching movies; she's just not terribly fond of my walking style.