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I started back on the treadmill recently with one of those couch to 5K apps. After the severity of my last ankle injury, I’ve been hesitant to start over…because that’s what it was: starting over from zero. I’ve started from zero about a zillion times where exercise is concerned because I’ve broken, sprained, strained, pulled, bruised and re-broken just about everything possible as an adult. It’s hard to find the courage to start over again, because going into it, you know it’s going to be hard, it’s going to hurt, and there may be more than a few failures along the way to success.
Whether you’re talking about exercise, forgiveness, school, career or anything else, starting over is hard, but all you have to do is start. Start where you are with what you have. In my case, I was starting out of shape (well, round IS a shape, and lumpy is kind of a shape) and in the only pair of sneakers that had shoelaces remaining in them after the puppy went on a shoe-eating spree. I won’t lie: day one sucked…SUCKED. Every injury of the last twenty years from head to toe was announcing its presence, and my lungs were on fire.
Let’s be real: my work is sedentary, so there was never going to be some magical fit day that I could lace up my sneakers and be a gym ninja on my first try. This was going to take work, and better to start now than on some vague day in the future. Yep, I’ve finished countless 5Ks and 8Ks and even a triathlon, but nothing since the last big injury, and I was starting to feel restless.
We all need some inspiration and some encouragement to get us going in the right direction. I found my inspiration in an unlikely place, a friend from elementary school who has gone from over a decade of sedentary life to being annoyingly fit in the last year or so. Like, you run into them and the first thing you think after sucking in your own gut is “Dammit, when did this fit crap happen?” We’re the same age, so screw it; I will not be bested by my elementary school classmates. He inspired me (thank you), and thus I named my new gym endeavor “Oh For Fuck’s Sake: If My Homeboy Can Do This Shit So Can I.” So far, so good.
I have a long damn way to go before I get back to what I consider reasonably fit and strong. I’d like to get back to crossfit in 2015, but I’ve got to pace myself carefully to get back to that level. Rushing into it would be a recipe for failure, injury, and 20 gallons of Ben and Jerry’s. Know yourself, your pace, and don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s.
Start where you are: that’s all you can do. Whatever it is that you need to face: a broken heart, addiction, exercise, job hunting, learning a new language, grief, giving up gluten, writing a book…whatever it is, large or small, all you can do is start where you are today.
There’s no magical way to fast forward through the hard parts. There are no legitimate shortcuts. If there were legit shortcuts, we’d all be super sexy multilingual salad-eating marathon-running supermodels happily married to gorgeous significant others while working soul-satisfying jobs, sleeping 9 hours a night, and teaching our dogs to use the toilet, put the seat down and flush. There are no shortcuts to health, to healing, to happiness…no shortcuts to anything worth having.
There are no valid excuses. People with no legs finish marathons. The broken-hearted love again. There is life to savor after grief. To get there from here, you have to make the choice to start, no matter how simply. Find your sneakers. Delete your ex-boyfriend’s phone number from your phone. Plant a tree. Start. Start, and then perhaps you’ll be someone else’s inspiration, no matter how unintentional, but start. 