Gidgetry

Today marks my first day of physical training. My trainer is a petite woman in her mid 20s with a Korean name, who speaks English with a slightly accented Korean American lilt. So, I knew we’d get along quite well.

I’ve lost quite a bit of weight in the last year. But I realized being slim doesn’t really mean being healthy. I need to build a little more muscle strength.

The first session was actually quite doable. She taught me several basic floor exercises. I’m finally learning how to do squats and lunges the proper way! And although they seem quite easy, I was easily out of breath and straining quite hard towards the end. She was very kind even though I didn’t quite nail the moves right she was still encouraging.

So here’s the three key things I learned in today’s session:

1) Eat at least 2 hours before a gym session. I stuffed my face with a custard bun and a cranberry roll on my way to the gym. Apparently they didn’t burn fast enough, lets just put it that way. I would have probably stood a better chance if I had gulped down a milo, or something highly refined or a fast carb

2) you’re supposed to use your shoulders and chest when you do a push up. I’ve been doing it all wrong! I thought it was all the sheer power of your triceps! But nay… It’s your core muscles, your shoulders and your chest…. And then your triceps.

3) One step at a time is better than aiming too fast too soon. I couldn’t do 15 sit ups without flailing like a catterpillar on fire. But I’m positive I can do three rounds of 15 sit ups by my 24th birthday. And maybe by the end of June, three rounds of 25 sit ups. Bring it on!

So, it was pretty good start I’d say. It probably showed me how far I have to go. I don’t typically think of myself as athletic but given as I’m turning 24, I really want to be in the best shape in my life both inside and outside.

It’s going to be an interesting challenge but you know what this competitive spirit against my own limits is really what drives me and makes me happy. This is a pretty good way to channel it in a healthy way.

So I say: bring it on!

It is quite possible to fall in love again and again with the same person. Perhaps in all these instances, there isn’t enough words to truly capture the nuanced differences in the different types of love that could exist between two people.

First, we fall in love with the idea of falling together. We don’t know where this may lead us. We don’t really quite know each other very well. But we are in love with the idea of falling together.

Second, we fall in love for the ideal image of the other. Seeing each other’s strengths and goodness, we admire and marvel.

Third, we fall in love with being together. It’s the chemical reaction: the sum of our habits, our likes, our pet peeves, our hopes, our dreams, our past, our heuristics. It’s falling in love with being an ‘us’ and creating something that is entirely new.

Fourth, we fall in love for the real other. Friction will inevitably arise from two unique individuals who are different souls with different histories, vices and habits, inhabiting each other’s space. That is when you truly fall in love for the entire design of the other: accepting every facet of differences and sameness that makes the other perfectly unique and very different from you.

Fifth, we fall in love with ‘us’. We fall in love with the ‘team’, supporting one another to achieve each other’s goals, through torrential storms of gigantic proportions. TIme to time when we take a step back, we marvel at how lucky we are to have come across someone brave enough to be together, come what may.

And the rest?
To be written someday soon, who knows when.
Come what may.

It’s been a really long week, albeit a very productive one.

It almost feels as if Friday is a few days away from now. 

I managed to complete a lot of things this week and making a lot of progress on several projects at once.

Good. All good. One day at a time is good.

There are large mountains looming ahead, an uphill climb that follows another: professionally and personally.

Perhaps a mountain range is a more fitting metaphor. The issues ahead are really quite as large as mountains: foreign and momentous forged by tectonic shifts. As miraculous as childbirth. As ethically complex too.

I’m scared. Really scared. It’s okay to be scared. This is one of our biggest test to date.

We all have the option of either living in anticipation of fear or to live simply. I am enjoying each day, one day at a time.

There is much to learn and I hope through this process, we will be a better family.

Amin.