FLOWING LIKE WATER OVERCOMING AN OBSTACLE

When flowing water… meets with obstacles on its path, a blockage in its journey, it pauses. It increases in volume and strength, filling up in front of the obstacle and eventually spilling past it…

Do not turn and run, for there is nowhere worthwhile for you to go. Do not attempt to push ahead into the danger… emulate the example of the water: Pause and build up your strength until the obstacle no longer represents a blockage.

~Thomas Cleary, I Ching

TACTICAL

Well... at least it’s summer.

It has been a mixed bag for me but nothing worth complaining about.  In fact, as ultra-athlete Meredith Dolhareaid in Sports Illustrated (cover date Aug 19, 2013) with regard to people who say that “they can’t run”,  “People say... because their knees hurt, but some of these people [in these extreme races] don’t even have knees.  They make no excuses, and that’s the type of athlete I want to be around.”

Dolhare’s statement is yet another piece that I am adding to my self-image and again leads me to wonder how a person could NOT see where I am coming from.  I want different things, or I may want the common things but go through an alternative methodology to achieve them, but toughness and determination, that is easy to understand and doesn't need a translation of any kind.

No, thoughts about our relationship isn’t troubling me any longer... but I refuse to concede anything to Nebraska.  I am who I put myself out here to be, what I am NOT is her creation of me.  How she could expect me to be anything else is well beyond me.  This ethos has been part and parcel in my ramblings only since the start of my writing... and something I definitely tried to express to her.

At any rate...

THE MYSTERIES OF THE ONE WHO IS OUT TO GET ME

Working out late Friday night led me to eschew taking the Melatoin.  I am aware there is a 1mg pill and I will look for it.  But Saturday I woke up before my 5:30 a.m. alarm by 10 minutes, and I felt good save a nagging spectre of a dream hanging over me.  Princess was on my mind, and it would be unexplainable as to why.  The urge to text her was strong but I moved through it.  It hung around like the odor of singed toast wafting around, clinging to my clothes and backpack.  Without even a glance to see if I had been sent a text, I started off for my day.

Stopped at Burger King to pick up breakie for me and whoever was on the front desk, pushed through the bright sun and fresh air to work.  Dropped off my co-worker’s food, headed to the elevator where I used my scan card to go to the break room in the main building.  The coffee that is put out for employees to drink is pretty cool for instant, and with it being available, it only made sense for me to start bringing something for myself and whoever was on the front desk to share on a little morning nosh break.  This day, it was the teacher who was pulling part-time work at the club.  He said he was grateful for the snack this morning, as last night was friends and drink for him.  

“Too bad I am not a drinker,” I replied.  “Because if I did I could send my ex-girlfriend a ‘drunk text’ and blame it on the alcohol!”  My co-worker laughed and I continued, expanding a bit on how odd a feeling it was for me to wake up with my ex on my mind.  Wasn’t long before I got to ‘shufflin’ over here’, and attending to my job, and my thoughts of Princess were lost in the tedium of the day.

One of the unique benefits of working at Pinnacle Fitness has been the growth and development in my younger co-workers.  Many of them are in college and have their sights set on what they want to do and how they are going to get there.  It is special to think we bleed staff because they have gotten accepted to graduate school or are joining minor league team’s training staff to work in their degree field, and it makes me feel at home, as I too, have my sights on something down the line.  One of my fave co-workers, is a young cat just turned 21, who is getting ready to move to Houston in a few weeks to start a new job.  He already has everything lined up, a place to stay, a part-time job if the main one falls through.  He is all set except... his heart... his heart is being broken.

He has a girl that he has been hanging about with for over three years.  I don’t know how much he really cares about her, meaning, I don’t know if he wants to marry her or anything, but he is one hurt puppy.  Now me and this cat have had some personal talks and this would be among the most relevant to both of us, here and now.  Near the end of my shift, he was able to talk to me about what he was feeling, and it became clear to me why I had to ‘think about the things that I thought I was thinking about’.  It wasn’t so that I can wallow in being forgotten and left behind by someone else, it was so that I could be there and support a friend.

So I listened to him talk about his feelings and let him make the salient points with regard to what he is doing now and next, and how much he has to look forward to.  Since he was a football player, I told him that he is in ‘scoring territory’, and there are two things that football coaches’ tell their teams in that situation... avoid mental errors and no turnovers... and that he had to remember that everything is in front of him and not behind.  Though I don’t know if I said anything to help him, I appreciated that he thought enough of me to share.

On my way home, I strange it was for me to have remnants of a dream and for it to have a lesson to advise someone I consider a friend.  I had a thought to go work out but I was very unmotivated and instead went home and chillaxed throughout the evening.