Fit By ___

Okay, please read this preface closely… I’m not looking for affirming responses or pats on the back. I’m not needing any cliche comments or future thoughts. I appreciate all of you, but sometimes people forget that this blog is my story and experiences through this journey. Most blogs, I do my best to encourage and be positive… this one will not be one of those blogs. Please hear me: I appreciate all the social media love that you will want to write, but it’s not what I need right now. I love you all and hope you understand.

So, I’ve been a little quiet lately. I missed my Monday blog last week and hope I haven’t started a trend in slacking on this blog. As you read before, I have moved into a small apartment with my family (Me, my wife, two girls, a dog, and a cat). I anticipated the great challenge that this would bring, but I really underestimated it’s impact in our family’s life. Here’s the deal, it’s a huge blessing to have a place to stay for a few months while our house is being build. It’s a HUGE blessing!!! At the same time, I have started a new job which I am learning a completely different role. On top of that, I am searching for a new box home since I live to far away from my Combustion family now.

All of this transition and change boils down to a couple of issues:

1. I am a stranger/ visitor everywhere

2. Routine is GONE!

Although we are staying in a great place, I don’t have access to my stuff… It’s not with me. (It’s in storage) Daily I come across something I need or could use and realize I either: A. Don’t know where it is, or B. Realize the movers took it to storage. So, each day I start out frustrated and agitated before I leave the apartment. I don’t even know where to sit and relax… there’s no place to just sit and decompress. Then I go to work in a new place with new people that I don’t know yet. A place with rules I haven’t learned and names upon names that I can’t get my head around right now.

Even when I go workout at a crossfire box, I’m a new guy who is dropping in. I don’t know the coaches and don’t know how things work. I don’t know who I should be pacing with or how hard I can push it. I mean, no one wants to be the guy who threw up on his first visit, right?

I have no normal places right now. I feel like a stranger in a strange land where everyone around knows what they are doing and where everything is. I’m struggling just to get out of the apartment each day.

My new routine is chaos. I can’t find routine. Boxes have different class times and at work i’m learning a whole new mode of operation, which I have yet to find. Zero consistency in any area of my life. You all know how I like my plan and routine and right now… none! I’m drowning and a sea of chaos and am desperate for any life raft I can find. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g!

In the midst of this, I think I have some depression coming back into my life. It’s gotten even stronger this week for whatever reason. Needless-to-say, I’m in a dark place. Sometimes on the verge of a breakdown in a sea of frustration and tears. At the same time, everyone around me is in their own struggles and so I don’t know where to be honest without burdening people… well, except here. Here I can be open and honest about me and I don’t have to be something someone else needs right now. That’s nice.

Everything is different and will be different for the next few months. I know this is only a season, it’s not my new life… it’s just a season. Once I settle into my new job, find a new CrossFit box, move into our home, and our new chapter begins it will be good. I will find my new normal and I anticipate a great future… but for now… I’m just in a dark place.

Writing this helps and I’ll continue to work toward the light, but today is not bright and that’s okay.

I had a check-in with Jamie today and found out that I had gained weight over the last two weeks. Almost 6 LBS! Upon closer inspection, it seems to be water weight due to stress. That’s crazy to me… my body is holding more water because i’m stressed out. Like, Is my stress a fire that can be beaten by an abundance of water… maybe. Or at least my body thinks so.

Tomorrow I’ll be back home at Combustion and I’ll attempt to sweat out all that extra water. It will be great to be around the familiar, where I’m not a stranger.

Thanks for allowing this to be a place were I can be real and honest. I hope my story helps other people to Keep Going, even when I’m in the midst of great struggle. Thank you.