Wednesday, June 6, 2012

My Temple, My Salvation

    Amazing how Body manages to keep propelling me through life, even when Brain seems to abandon me. I am beginning to believe that Brain has just given up, thrown in the towel, walked away in disgust or defeat. Meanwhile, Body keeps me careening on an interesting journey, bouncing off ramparts, over cliffs, through moguls, and getting tougher and stronger by the day. It is true. I am incredibly fit, more so than ever before in my long life full of workouts and sports regiments, and maintaining a level of fitness that I had never thought possible. Yes, I do understand that the near vomit inducing workouts are a form of my Mania, OCD, ADHD and even self-flagellation. It is also the only way I have found to effectively combat the demons that are constantly lurking about, waiting for an opportunity to strike, looking for a weakness to exploit. And the opportunities for them are near to endless. An advantage of living alone is that there is no one to witness my deranged workouts, when I am choking back sobs, or weeping silently, or not so silently, and I run to gasping, or lift weights with single-minded mania, to trembling exhaustion, nausea, pain. I workout until it is nearly time for bed, then gulp down a ridiculously healthy dinner, unwind for a few minutes, then crawl, depleted, into the womb that is my bed. I am still undecided, do I work out as a form of punishment or reward? When I am at my most despairing is when I will push myself the hardest. Beating myself up for my own imagined failings? Or pushing myself, knowing I am strong enough to overcome even the darkest of times? At least my muscles are pleasantly sore every day, little reminders of the previous nights exploits, pleasurable pain. Is that the key? Pleasure in pain? I admit, the hint of pain can add an exhilaration, a thrill, zest, intensity, fervor, rapture. I know that most "professionals" would view this as unhealthy behavior, avoidance, or just sheer madness, but I know it for what it is: Salvation. It is my salvation, my Body is my Temple, housing a sometimes fragile psyche, and so the Temple must be a fortress. I feel strength and power coursing through me, muscles, bones, heart and lungs, invincible. I am vital, vibrant, vivacious, lean and mean, strong and sexy. It has been an epic journey that Body has taken me on this year. I am pushing myself far beyond anything I could have dreamed of even a year ago. I begin to entertain grand schemes of future athletic competitions. Now that I have stepped outside of the box that had kept me restricted for so long, I see new vistas, new challenges, a whole new world of self-induced ass-kickings.
    I know Brain looks upon this with a bit of contempt, so much energy focused on the physical. But Brain also understands that without Body working so hard to keep demons at bay, building a fortress from and around the temple, we would be quickly overrun and demoralized. And so Body propels me forward with the energy of the whirlwind, my Whirlwind. My Temple. My Fortress. My Salvation.

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