is it that deep or do i just refuse to swim?
i talk and think about doing things more than actually doing them. i have so many ideas of things that i could do, that i end up feeling paralyzed and the easiest way to ease this feeling of static along my veins is to just yap. i think among some circles, this could be interpretted as me having many forethoughts, but in reality, i end up just not doing the things i said i would. i will say i have been getting better at this recently; within myself lies a strong sense of what is the right thing to do, and when this sense is activated, i can follow through with most.
i came back from my trip a few weeks ago very sick. my friend had spread a bad case of bronchitis to me (which i ended up spreading to some of my other close friends and boyfriend) which required antibiotics and a few weeks to cough out all the yellow phlegm. in terms of my overall health, i'm doing alright now, but i recognize i have a tendency to push and push the limits of my body until i completely collapse. this isn't a very sustainable practice, and now that many things have settled into place, my own health is something i could take more seriously. i've been working out with some weights in my room since january and now that i've finally started seeing some form of result; both in how i feel, and how i look, i realize what i've been neglecting for so long.
gym class was my nightmare growing up. i hated all of it, the sweating, the running, playing with the boys in my class, my overly enthusiastic gym teacher who i eventually outgrew by the age of twelve. i felt uncomfortable, plain and simple, and combined with my dad's strong serbian urge to enroll me into extracurricular sports (and also play a very involved role in all my sports team) led me to the computer as a way to avoid all of it. in typical fashion, i sacrificed my physical health as a kid for the pursuit of knowledge. a memory i find myself coming back to often is being in after-school dodgeball classes at the community centre attached to my elementary school, unable to do a single pushup at eleven years old. part of me wants to blame my parents for my inactivity, but i recognize how incredibly difficult of a kid i was to motivate to do sports. it feels like a incredibly natural progression to look back at this memory, almost twelve years later, and to be able to do pushups.
my uncle is an example of someone i never want to mirror, in any regard. he is someone with an incredibly weak will, and for the years he spent living with us here in toronto while he trucked around the north american continent, the one thing i learnt is how much regret being physically unfit can bring to a person. he is fat, and has always been fat for as long as i've known him. i remember him in his sauna suits, his early morning workouts, his smoothies made from fruits bought on my dad's dime. every single one of his attempts to lose the weight failed. as much as i dislike the man for reasons outside of this post, the one good piece of advice i ever got from him was to take care of myself before it was too late, to "lean" up before i became like him.
as i've gotten older, i do realize that a lot of what i do now is in a pursuit to not end up exhibiting the traits of the people closest to me in my childhood. a lot of this requires making the active choice in my head to stop these behaviours or work these traits as i notice them, though sometimes i do realize i can be incredibly tough on myself when i decide to ruminate on what i should do versus actually going out and working on what i need to work on. knowing that i 've been able to do better than what came before me is how i source a significant portion of my personal fulfillment (other parts coming from my things such as relationships with others, love, intellectual stimulation); that despite all these difficult moments in my life (difficult is subjective, mind you), i've done the work, i've swam.