Pass the Sun Chips

(Pre-Script: To increase muscle mass in the most flattering way possible while reading this post, you must first go down to the playlist and click on song #50 on the playlist, "Gone," by Switchfoot, then come back and resume reading this post as it plays in the background. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Discipline: The stuff you do because you have forgotten how hard it was the last time you did it. By the time your memory has been re-awakened, it is too late to back out of the thing. Why do human beings do this? Why do we forget all about the pain, but bliss out on the momentary high at the end of the thing? Is the high really that high? Or is the trauma of the pain so traumatic as to block itself out of consciousness memory, because if we could exactly remember the intensity of it, we would be freaky weird people all the time, more freaky and weird than we all already are, jumpy and skittish and startling at the drop of a dime, and we would also never get any of the "real" work done, the stuff that keeps the wheels turning, in our vehicles, lives, and world?

I do the same things every day, with mild variety. I don't always know what day it is. I wish to be wise without having to go through a discipline process to get there. the process usually involves pain, sweat, humiliation, raw nerve endings exposed, being taken to the point of what I can bear, and even beyond. I do not enjoy the process. I endure it. I would often not endure it if I could choose, but I have no choice. Although now that I think about it, if I were already wise, I would choose to endure the process, at least some of the time. And now that I think of it, I guess I have chosen to endure some processes, but it was because I didn't remember the pain at the moment of choosing to endure it, and by the time I remembered, it was too late to change my mind.

Every time I get on the treadmill, for instance, it is because I forget how painful it was last time. I have elevated the previous run in my mind;

"It wasn't that bad,"

I tell myself,

I endured it, and by the time I was done, I only felt the endorphin rush; I felt like a champion. I could hear the champion music in my head, and a crowd of screaming, ecstatic witnesses. I was ready to step up to the podium, accept my large bouquet of fire and ice roses (with blue delphiniums mixed in), and my sash, and give a speech: "Thank you all so much for believing; I'd like to thank the members of the academy for their support. You are all beautiful people..." RAAAAHHHH, I hear from the stands...that RAAAHHHH is accompanied the loud speakers blaring :

"We are the Champions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting, 'til the end, we are the champions, we are the champions, no time for losing, 'cause we are the champions...of the WORLD!!!"

which becomes the background theme music of the rest of my day.

Then I get on the treadmill two days later. I am pumped about getting back up on that treadmill, until I actually have to start to breathe, which is usually in about no time at all. I look down at the distance I have gone or the calories I have burned in 2 minutes, and I am suddenly plummeting rapidly towards depression and despair. Only now it is too late to get off of the machine, because I am already on it, and I am not even a tenth of the distance I ran last time. I have not even broken a sweat. Kelly Clarkson is not even to her first chorus. Dagnabbit, why did I have to push it so hard the last time I was on this thing?? Now anything less will just be...well, less. And less, is not more, it is not even equal to. The fans in my head do not cheer so loudly on a "less" workout. They may do a soft clap for consideration, a nod in my direction, maybe a couple of them even throw rose pedals...but it's not the same. That's what I get for being a show off to myself.

It was the same with birthing babies. I did it once, forgot about the trauma and pain, the needles and my very great phobia and hatred of them, specifically of having them inserted into my body at various points, forgot all about the fact that a full term baby "in" needs a way to get "out," and there is no pleasant way to get a full term baby "out." and once he or she is "out," he or she leaves all of his or her "luggage" behind...often right on your behind...but I digress.

It is the same every time I decide that today would be a good day to bake a lasagne from scratch, and another one to freeze.

It is the same with cleaning the bathrooms.

Cleaning the kitchen.

Mopping the floor.

Vaccuming.

Oh heck, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Tomorrow, I might be too tired to lift a finger. I might not remember if it is April 23rd or May 2nd. But there will have been an as yet imperceptible increase in my muscle strength and endurance, I might not have to look down at the recipe card as often, those dagnabbit stains will be easier to scrub off, and I will know that I was really alive this day, and present...

'Cause I'm quite sure that the muscles of a dead person do not ache like this.

I was meant to live.

Someday I might maybe be wise.

-XOXO,