This is very possibly my favorite calendar page because I have absolutely no idea why I kept it! Let alone why it came off the wall, spoke to me, and went back up!! If you get past the naughty innuendo (which I don't) you're left with this question: Ummm, Edgar Allan Poe said that?! The guy that wrote The Raven? And The Tell-Tale Heart? And (the one that haunted me after being forced to read it in seventh grade) The Pit and the Pendulum? That guy said that? Well, just as suspected, from the research I've done on that quote, it's not likely. But I love that it made a running calendar page. And I love that it made it on the wall.
When I get past the Edgar Allan Poe part I realize that the sentiment rings true. I did not like to sweat before I started training six years ago. I mean, just being hot and uncomfortable feels gross. But being hot and uncomfortable because I put myself there on purpose for a bigger purpose, now all of a sudden a flip was switched and I crave it. I crave it as a measure of the work I'm doing towards something bigger, and I really like it.
This past weekend was sweaty:
- picking green beans
- gathering eggs from the chickens on my friend's farm
- fixing the tarp on the chicken coop
- walking miles in a meadow
And these things make me sweaty:
- running long
- running easy
- running intervals
- running hills
- lifting weights
- getting my heart rate up on the bike
- holding a plank
- doing a dead hang
And so do these:
- washing my car
- washing the floor
- hanging clothes on the line
- cleaning anything
- changing the sheets
- pulling weeds
But then there is this kind of sweating, the best kind of all, the kind that you might say I was sweating buckets when you weren't actually sweating at all:
going somewhere new
going somewhere new, alone
meeting new people
giving a speech
making a pitch
standing up for someone
standing up for myself
drawing a line in the sand
expressing an opinion
asking questions
asking for help
saying you love someone
saying you don't
feeling hopeful
feeling hopeless
then daring to feel hopeful again...
These lists go on and on, thankfully.
Edgar missed the boat, poor guy, because the best things in life do make you sweaty.