Well, I am getting used to the Matrix TH-3 "moving very fast" pavement. It is so much easier on my knees. The weight-training is coming along. I am getting stronger.
It amazes me as life would promise new opportunities and people into it for reasons and purposes that only time and effort can decipher. I have met many people in the gym. There are a handful of whom I have come to long to see every time I go work out. I could not utter a single reason as to why at first. I am not their family, not really friends yet, not colleagues and I don't really "need" them at all! So why?
I have been wracking brain about it so I can write this blog. In the quiet of the night, the wee hours of darken morning, I finally figured it out. This community of "gymites" help lighten my burden. What is my burden? The burden is a figure of speech--it is practical the effort, sweat, driven-determination to work my body into a frenzy, sweaty, and muscle-burning state. These people are there for the same reason. They have all made the decision to put out the same effort and they experience identical physical exertion. And this is only on the surface.
We go there to do the same thing with various reasons, but we go and we work out. And in this very process a communion of spirits, thoughts, and lives are united. Bonds formed and friendships forged.
A wonderful lady told me her continuing battle with breast cancer, which is now in her liver and she has a port for chemo as she was riding on the ecliptic bicycle. She has been on chemo for over a year and she works out like a champ. I told her my story and we promised to pray for each other daily.
I mentioned in my last blog about an ex-boxer who is so kind and is always on the look-out when I am on an apparatus to make sure that I am OK. He trains me whenever I need it. He shares his story about his three children and grandchildren every time we see one another. The proud is gleaming in his eyes.
Pastor Dan continues to praise God and rouse up the gym room and he lifts all our spirits. He is a gift from the heavens.
One lady talks the entire time and has a readily audible voice. I counted that by the third sentence into each work-out the subject of "food" enters into the conversation--she brings it up. So much humor that one time I had to get off the treadmill because I was laughing uncontrollably. She is also a Sacramento King's fan and jokes galore. She is the jest, bar none, and I need the humor!
One young mother comes during her lunch break everyday to get about a 40-minute work-out to keep up with her 2-year old. She always looks perfectly groomed and has the coolest gadgets.
One young Chinese lady--out of college--looking for employment and she comes because of all the stress of looking for a job. She used to own a Chinese restaurant but decided to find another gainful employment.
Then there is Fran---watch out. She is a dynamite--about everything, and we are having an Presidential Election year here in USA.
All these people and I have in common are our faith and our dedication to physical fitness. We share both every time we see each other. It is a spiritual feast with sweat, so to speak. We carry our burdens into the gym, we open our bags and then we share. That is the reason I long to see them. They GET it! And I love it.
When I found out I had avascular necrosis in both of my knees. I was sunken. It is practically a death sentence for my poor knees because I will HAVE to replace them someday. That will be brutal. So I isolated myself so I could brood. So I brooded and reluctantly re-joined the community gym for good measure. It took a lot of will power to get dressed and get myself in the car to a "strange" place for a new routine. I was not anxious, I was angry.
It was sheer will power for several weeks before I started to chat with other "gymites". I watched them talk and laugh and giggle so I just had to have some of that. The rest is history.
The feeling of having people around you, not just anybody, but people who GET it, to work out with feels like the words in the song "You raise Me Up" sung by Josh Groban--"You raise me up to more than I can be….".
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