Taking a Second (Month)

Throughout January, I participated a numbing amount of times in the same icebreaker. ‘What are your goals for 2025?’  I didn’t have one, yet.  The idea but not the words.  Dreams, but not goals.  Yet.  Once January ran out, so did everyone’s interest.  Except, for the blank spots on the poster at the gym full of names, but not mine.

What was I waiting for?  Watching for?  Most importantly, “What was I doing?”  So many habits, one or more times a day, every day of the week.  Tired.  Frustrated.  Frantic.  So many habits, even ones I meant to enjoy, weren’t making me happy.  Instead of feeling better, purposeful, they made me feel worse, both about my progress and myself.

Every new Hebrew level, I added another study habit, because I worried everything I had learned would fall out of my head.  My pace had become unsustainable.  Too many next steps.  In contrast was publishing.  For the past ten years, I submitted to literary magazines regularly.  While a normal day’s effort would include ten submissions, this number had been diminishing.  To seven, to five and most recently to three.  Disappointment rose confronting a perceived reality I had run out of road.  No next steps.

Something had changed.  Maybe not in the goals, nor my expectations, but in how I needed to show up for myself. In this new stage, time spent wasn’t a firehose of tasks, but celebrating unique strategies that might bring unexpected forward movement.While the dreams remained the same, I was missing new ways to connect with them.  That took a second to think about.

Sitting in the gym the last full week of January, I stared behind my trainer towards the Goals 2025 sheet taped to the wall.  I had resisted the urge to write ‘muscle up’ for a month, because I knew it was too simplistic.  I wanted to fly, but I couldn’t find the words.  I was convinced my trainer would tell me I wasn’t ready.  I asked myself, “Did her assessment matter?”

“So what do you want to talk about?” my trainer asked. 

“I need intention,” I responded.  “I’m always doing everything at a 9 out of 10.”

Little did she know, in everything.

“The RPE, rate of perceived exertion, I don’t set that to be a B or to hold you back.”

I nodded.

“If it says 7 and you’re choosing moves or quantities that you’re barely finishing, you’re not moving forward.”

I sucked in my breath, but did not respond.

“Does your day really change if you do all the Toes to Bar or some toes to something?”

“No.” 

Except that maybe I felt like I let myself down.  Or, I don’t have a helpful definition of ‘forward’.

“I want you to be safe.  To be able to come back.”

There it was.  Sustainability.  And sustainability meant retaining identities that mattered most to me.  Language learner.  Dedicated aunt.  Writer.  Editor.  Strong.  Not a quitter.

Dreams could be something that were once in a lifetime, but goals were something else.  Goals not only kept me moving but ensured I could keep moving, keep being what I wanted to be.  

“So, what can I do?”  I met her gaze.

“More lat strength.  I can give you exercises,” my trainer offered.  “But also, it’s stamina.”  She paused, “Not here.”  She placed her hand on her chest.

“I know.”  I shrugged my shoulders not in deference, but imagining wings.  Flying was both rising and not falling.  

I took a second and then picked up a blue marker.  Strength to leave the ground.  Stamina to not fall out of the sky.