It is quarter past six.
My roommate got up fifteen minutes ago and now is heading out the door, his gear bag for the gym packed the night before. As his hand is on the knob to the outside, he casually asks me how things are going.
I have just finished writing the previous blog of everything each day costs me to run.
We are conversing in the living room it took me and the kid an hour, yesterday, to organize.
One room over is the kitchen I have stocked and spend two half-hour segments every day, to maintain.
I am only twelve hours past attending the funeral of my ex-friend’s daughter. I was in a fistfight earlier in the week. My bank accounts are all empty pending the promises of tenants which will all be proven (or not) this final week of the month.
But I am rallying against the stress and mental illness by forcing a nearly Olympic plan into action: one which, so far, has shown promise in the fourteen days over which I’ve increasingly hit more and more of the marks.
“Okay, yeah, all that’s great,” says this man who eats cereal for dinner every night, chicken for lunch, and works out three hours a day to maintain the holy temple of his body for whatever use the Lord has given it to him — and he’s got a hint that it’s for the improvement of his spirit for this incarnation. Oh, also, his body needs to be maintained for his bodaciously taxing job of standing in a courtroom, looking uniformed. “But I gotta go,” he continues. “I’m gonna be late for the gym.”
I might have a lot of pressures. But being late to meet myself solo in the gym, isn’t one of them.
And wishing I mattered more to the people around me has been a pressure. But isn’t as of now. I’ve got plans and dreams now. As of three days ago I’ve shifted my attention to getting better networks; smarter, less damaged, more self- and inter-aware. More efficacious in the world.
Because if you consider the source, there’s a reason my roommate stands in a courthouse. There’s a reason he hasn’t finished his Bachelor’s, nearly seven years after he struggled to complete his Associate’s degree so that he could achieve his current lofty position. It’s related to the reason that he’s not itchy or upset that his current position isn’t all that lofty.
So, yeah. In one framework, I’m one officer’s reason for being five minutes late to the gym this morning.
But in my own framework, to which I am giving more and more credence, I am fucking incredible.
And looking hella forward to that new Friends & Associates list.