Three years a gym rat!

Three years ago I started going to CrosSport, never knowing a gym could change my life and possibly save it. It sounded like a fun place (and they gave the youth I worked with an opportunity to participate). I made the resolution to start, took my before pictures, but waited to go until February 2013. (I didn’t want to be one of those New Year’s people). I felt like I was already fit. I ran half-marathons and 5-10 mile runs every weekend for fun, I practiced yoga2-4 times a week, but it’s funny how one change, for the good or bad, can catalyze more changes in the direction you’re facing. Running and yoga were good, but I wanted more.
I started at CrosSport alone, just me and a goal to see what my body could do. I went two or three days a week. I heard Des sing and Mike tell me how to do the exercises. I saw men and women in all phases of their fitness journey doing hard things to train their bodies to obey their will. I was intimidated. I was inspired! I was hooked!
Oh that first leg day!! I shook and trembled to my car and almost fell out the door when I got home. I climbed one painful step after another to the front door but I couldn’t get the cheesy grin off my face. I liked the pain!!! It told me I was alive, I existed and I was atrophied. There was within me a body capable of more than what I had been doing. I wanted to push my limits!
Ten months ago, the man I fully intended spending the rest of my life with, growing old with, sharing history and time with, left. That story is his to tell. I was, as were our children, collateral damage in the choice.
My world stopped turning, nothing made sense. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t parent my children. All I could do was cry out to God and spew my transient emotions to anyone who would listen. And move. I was not created to be still. In the past I resorted to less than healthy choices to deal with hard feelings and restless energy. Destruction was an option. Drugs were an option. Meaningless affection was an option. Suicide was an option. These were my options and, yes, I’m ashamed to admit it, they were the options at the top of my mind.
Luckily I’d just finished publishing Catching Tatum and had a slew of suicide prevention and STD facts fresh in my head AND had written about the devastating effects of what both do. So with MUCH support, prayer and counseling I came up with healthier options.
My options were my two steadies… Jesus and the gym. CrosSport became my safe place, my home away from home. I could go and not have to think or explain or do anything but what they told me to do. And so I did. Two, sometimes three WODs a day. I survived. I got stronger. I stayed safe. I fit into the gym community in my own little way. Day by day, by the grace of God, breathing got easier, thinking got clearer, life started to take on a new flow and rhythm. Not as it was before, as it is in the middle.
Then this month came and I looked at my “Before” pictures!!! I didn’t expect to see such a change. Three years of faithful, consistent, time put into showing up at CrosSport to do the WODs, has paid off. This is pushing myself, not slowing down to fit in or competing too hard and hurting myself, just me being the best version of myself. For me… because I AM WORTH the work!  
Some have implied I spend too much time at CrosSport… maybe. But I say it’s a good choice, a safe place, a better way to live and hands down a preferred alternative to my old destructive ways. So, yeah, happy three years to me!!! And thank you CrosSport for open doors and fit living options!!!

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