The scary thing: my fantasy is coming true. I find it harder to write, to push through that initial block, my brain isn’t as right-there as it used to be.
Now there’s a layer of body awareness that I never had before that gets in the way, feeling the tiny tremors racing just underneath my senses, my body’s fibers having been stretched out and torn and re-supplemented. A whole cascading network of failures and subsequent re-structurings. If I pay close attention, I can feel the entire foundation of my body straining, sore, vibrating with exertion. Certain movements, back, forth, standing up, pushing through an already sore muscle, are constant triggers of the activity that caused it. I, for a second, return to the moment when the muscle tore, the exercise I was struggling through.
I have, in other words, learned to ignore my mind, and as a result, it is less available to me when I need it. My body is slowly taking over. Instead of listening to my brain when it screams STOP after 8 reps, but I grit my teeth and shove through another 7.
Casual conversations almost always include the gym. “Any plans for your Wednesday?” asks the checkout clerk at the grocery store, where I am purchasing something huge with insane protein.
“I just got done at the gym,” I say, even though it’s got to be obvious from the way I am dressed and slightly flushed and a little bit exultant. It’s hard to hide the pride in my voice. A dim, far-off part of me wants to flex as punctuation. “So I am gonna go home and mow this burrito down and have my shake and then maybe go for a bike ride.” I talk almost thoughtfully, as though considering the whole range of physical activity available to me. Gotta get swole, my internal voice adds. Swole for summer, swole for the beach. Sun’s out guns out, hahaha.
My trainer laughs and says things like, “Soon you’ll have to get one of those tanks that say I Flexed and the Sleeves Fell Off or Welcome to the Gun Show!” He’s joking, of course, but inside I’m thinking Fuck yeah. He of course doesn’t know that one has already been ordered and I’m just waiting for the right time to wear it out in public.
Seems like I’m almost always talking about the gym. A co-worker the other day said, seeing me out of work clothes and in basketball shorts and Nikes (the black and volt yellow trainers) “Of course you were at the gym. That’s the only thing you do outside of work.” And there’s that swelling sensation again, something inside that wants to flex and chant about being swole and it’s kind of hilarious, so I laugh a little bit, and it comes out strange, a kind of chuckle but like, a grunting? Like a huh-huh-huh kinda laugh. Weird. Brush it off and head on home to make the shake and rest up for leg day.
Leg day is brutal, and just like everyone else you see on Instagram and Facebook and whatever, I talk about leg day all the time. I walk a little funny, probably exaggerate it a little bit, say “Oh, fuck, yeah, yesterday was leg day and I am feelin it today, bro.” The bro just kinda slips in there, sometimes I slip it in there once in awhile, and I can’t tell if I’m doing it on purpose or if it’s happening because it wants to, like the internal voice is kinda taking over. Gettin swole. And it’s been about four months since I started and shit is happening, for real, and it’s kinda weird, but it’s also sorta what I wanted when I started, too. At first.
I mean, no one wants to be dumb, not really, no, not even you, and you sometimes entertain the possibility that you might be kinda dumb already, because there’s always somebody smarter than you, you just haven’t met them yet, and that’s enough to kind of, trip your brain up, you know, kinda, shove it down flat and knock the air out of it. And while it’s getting back up, wheezing, you can’t remember if its its or it’s and that’s kinda hot but also a little odd and makes you panicky … but if you just exhale, just take a deep sigh, what was it again you were focusing on? If I try to focus, the first thing I feel is the aches of my muscles re-assembling themselves, building like stormclouds under my skin, and the little thunders of aches when I move from sitting to standing.
So it’s hard to write about this because it’s just that my brain is becoming another muscle, but not one that I’ve been working out alot. Tripped myself up there. Kinda tired cuz I pushed real hard today at the gym and ate a bunch of food. Body wants to rest, brain thinking doing too much energy from body and muscles are more importanter than thinking maybe Ill jerk off real quick and take a nap and let my muscles grow more yeah that’s a good idea just breathing easier and letting mu muscles grow more cuz gotta get swole gotta get big thats right get swole ….
know who i am now bro
BroUnderConstruction 