Sunday, September 28, 2008

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Seven

3:48 AM. Hey, it's the weekend, cut me some slack ;)

So yeah, it's incredibly late, but I wasn't really shooting for midnight tonight anyways. I just spent a real long time talking with Andrew, which was pretty cool. We talked too long though, and it got late.

Today was a real good day though. I woke up today with an attitude. I wanted to make today worth something, and I worked to make it happen. My goal was to face every minute of the day with the idea of, "Okay, I've got a minute, how am I going to progress? How am I going to use this minute to move forward?"

And so I worked hard and got some stuff done. I got the room cleaned, and it looks awesome. It's so nice in here now. I know it won't stay forever, but it's such an improvement. I love it. I got a rebate mailed off. I paid my rent, I folded some laundry, I got some groceries, I did some home teaching, I studied for my calc test, I ironed two shirts. I got a lot of stuff done today- more than usual.

I also watched a lot of college football and wasted a considerable amount of time. It wasn't one hundred percent, but it was a lot closer than usual.

I think that drive and attitude I tried to foster today really helped. "I've got a minute, how am I going to use it to progress?" That was important to me today. I didn't want to face another post knowing that I didn't change my life today. I didn't want to fail one more time. So I fought for it. It wasn't a huge day, but it was better.

So I'm pretty happy about that.

We had an adventure tonight. I'll write about it, because that's what I want to do. We had the push the van up a pretty steep and decently long hill tonight. It was a block of uphill, essentially. We knew we'd need guys to make it happen, so we called the apartment down. Me, Kyle, Levi, James, Andrew, and Steve-o were all there to push it up the hill. Melissa and Katie piloted our support vehicle, while Molly steered the leg-powered van.

It was about 11:15 PM when we did this. It was just one block we needed to travel. From the bottom of the hill to the B-lot. It was a really good experience.

Pushing was so much harder than I thought it would be. Pushing the van on level ground isn't hard at all. Momentum works for you- life is good. Uphill is crazy. Gravity doesn't like you. I really thought that with six guys pushing it would be pretty easy. It was longer and more difficult than I had ever thought.

We made it, but pushing up that hill was rough. I was grunting and shouting like I never ever do. It was really all I could do. Me and Andrew were up on the wings, pushing from the driver's side door or passenger's side door. The rest of the team was in the back. I couldn't see back there, but I knew they were pushing. One guy ran and joined us from the side of the road. I didn't even see him, and didn't notice any particular help, but I'm so incredibly grateful for that guy. What a stud, to just hop on and push a vehicle he's never seen before with six guys he's never met. It's 11:15 at night. He just ran and hopped on- so cool.

But getting up that hill hurt. My legs just didn't wanna do it anymore. We finally made it, and it felt so good. I love the fact that we can call our guys and that they'll come running. I love that we had a support team and people willing to help us get it done. It reminds me of the power of a team or a quorum; it's just incredible. I was so proud of the guys. I was incredibly grateful that they'd come to back me up in something like that. It was the van, and I'd gambled on getting home. I was wrong about what it could handle, but they didn't gripe at all about it. They just showed up to help me out. No complaints, no accusations. No murmuring about the van sticking them in another bad situation. They just showed up to help me out. It was incredible.

When we finished pushing the van I felt something that I haven't felt for a very long time. The feeling of being utterly beat physically. There are a lot of kinds of being utterly beat physically. The idea of running 14 miles that one Monday for cross country comes to mind. But that's a different kind of beat. That's an endurance beat. It's a tired of running beat. It's a "someone get me protein, glucose, and carbohydrates right now because my body is in peril" kind of thing. There's also an "I've stayed up too late" beat. Where your body or mind is tired. It's there, but it's different.

Pushing the van up a hill is a cool kind of beat. It's one where your muscles and lungs and heart are all very tired from very intense exertion. There's an awesome thing about pushing a van up a hill- you can push your very hardest. Nowhere else can you really do that. You put all your force into pushing that van up the hill, and you're still coming up short. With cross country you can only run so fast. You can only run so far. Your body sorta stops letting you run faster, your legs just won't do it. There's a boundary placed on you. It's not so much that your muscles or your mind or your desire can't run faster, it's just that there's something in the way. Pushing the van up the hill isn't like that. You put everything into pushing. You don't hold anything back. It will push back just as hard as you push forward.

Getting to the top of the hill was a beating that I cherished. I was physically and mentally exhausted from intense exertion. Not a forever long exertion, just a dang intense one for a good couple of minutes.

Everything changes when you're physically beat. You think differently. Your emotions react differently. You take different chances and you say different things. Priorities are altered. It's actually a really refreshing experience. I'm much more affectionate when I'm physically beat. I'm sort of in love with everybody when I'm that beat, it's kinda nice.

So that's the cool story of the day. A very big thanks goes to everybody that helped our tonight. Much love to my horses who pushed. Much love to our friend who joined us; he's a stud. Much love to our lovely support crew in the back- thanks for keeping people from running over us. And much love to Molly for pretending to be power steering while I pushed. Yes- it does make me feel a little less manly now that I know a girl can steer my van just as well as I can. But still, I appreciate it a lot friends.

It's a nice reminder about everything, when we come together like that.

Yeah, I feel good about that. It's 4:08 AM, and this cat is off to a bit of reading and writing and them bed time. Much love- I hope you're all doing well. I'm serious about all this, you know. No shows and gimmicks. This is the real deal. I'm still me. Still insecure and confused and scared like crazy sometimes. I don't have everything figured out. And I don't pretend to. But I do appreciate what happened tonight deep in my heart. That's where I stand- and I'm sticking with it.

2 comments:

Heather said...

I'm sorry the van's not working so well lately, but I'm glad you had a cool "uphill" experience. haha...nothing like working up a sweat like that. Wish I could have been there to help! We've been lifting a lot for softball lately and we just finished our first "phase" of our lifting program, and I'll be honest, it's tough. But I feel so strong walking out of the gym--and it's so worth it.

Well I hope everything is going well, have a good one!

-Heather

Jaron Frost said...

Wow... that sounds really difficult. I remember trying to push my car once, back when I was sixteen. It was hard all by myself. But I think I had the emergency brake on, too. It didn't go very well. Anyway, I'm glad you guys didn't have to face some sort of disaster... I can imagine so many things potentially going wrong. I'm glad you all made it. :)