Everything highlighted

Right before November began, we decided to take on a fitness challenge. Ryan started it, then I hopped on board, and I printed out copies for the kids to participate, too.

We all went into this with different attitudes. You can see I thought I would double the burpees, at least. Then I realized I was supposed to do push up burpees, which are NOT FUN, so I respected the challenge limits and moved forward.

This morning, I finished.

I didn’t finish perfectly. I can think of two days I skipped, which meant I doubled up the exercises the following day, something that felt much easier on the first half of the sheet than the second half. After about the twenty push up number and the two-minute plank, I had to do those exercises in blocks, breaking them up with ten to twenty second breaks where I basically pep-talked myself into continuing. I could possibly do 50 consecutive pushups, but it wouldn’t be pretty, and even doing them in three consecutive chunks (20, 15, 15) felt pretty rewarding (all on my toes!)

What makes me proudest about this list of highlighted rows (marred by creases and coffee) isn’t the fitness I gained, because honestly, prior to November 1, I didn’t care how many pushups I could do.

I care about this, because I finished something that felt hard at times.

Some days it felt extremely hard.

Of course I had days where I ran and then blasted through the list with music blaring in my ears, feeling strong. Other days, I did it in the living room, with Dylan next to me, checking off his list. Other days still, I did it alone, not even wearing workout clothes, wondering how this chunk of body weight exercises could make me sweat in under five minutes. And, like I mentioned, a couple days I couldn’t bring myself to do it at all.

Today, though, all the boxes are checked. I used different color highlighters and spilled coffee and kept going anyway. For someone with many, many sets of habit trackers littered with missed days, this means something.

I finished, and it helps me remember finishing is possible, even when it feels hard, repetitive, or even a little pointless.

Now to get started on what I’ll finish next.