growing pains.

psychologists propose that annual-seasonal prompts are, collectively, enough stimulus to recall and reinstill feelings and event-related sentiments from years past. what's interesting is having something life-altering happen one year, and as a result not feeling the customary year-to-year feelings at the same time any more. even if it's a good thing to have lost that annual sentiment, it's still strange. it's true that for the most part we're creatures of habit. in habit we find comfort. routine, on some level, gives most of us a sense of underlying security. it's hard to leave a part of you behind, even if it is a reliably annual sentiment that isn't entirely good. Peck wrote that growth hurts, precisely because in growing personally, we're most often leaving something behind. that something can be a mannerism, a belief, a job, a lover, a way of life, almost anything. and he's right. it's comfortable to stay where we are. to stay as we are. it can be terrifying to grow, especially when it means moving into the unknown, even when we know it's for the better. but then life isn't much fun if you don't change, even if that does mean leaving some things behind. some people. some of yourself. there is always more. infinite or not, it's enough to fill up a lifetime.

growing hurts in other ways, too. when you haven't done any physical training in years and decide to start again, it hurts. my god, does it hurt. i hadn't thrown up during a workout in my lifetime before friday. i've since learned that when your body has a toxic amount of lactic acid in it (notably from doing eleven rounds of plyometrics up forty stairs and then repeatedly sprinting up flights of a hundred fifty odd stairs), it's sort of out of your hands. more aptly put it's out of your mouth and onto your hands. but when everyone else - literally every single person - in your training group experiences the exact same thing at virtually the exact same time, you don't feel too badly about the shape you're in. it's actually kind of funny. it's actually kind of great.

it's another unique thing to grow and to change, and to come full circle with things and to have the old become new again. it surprises how different things can be the second time around. sometimes it's worse, and you move on again, for the second time. perhaps the last time. perhaps the second "last time." and sometimes it's better in ways you didn't think it could be. so you stick around and see where it takes you. maybe you're ready for it now. maybe it's changed to fit your person better. maybe you've changed so that you fit with it. maybe nothing seems to have changed, but the time and place are right, and it's meant to be.

maybe you knew it all along, but things had to go a certain way so that everything would turn out right in the end.

big ups to kirk cameron. peace and love to the rest.
jh..