The sweet taste of finishing

Sometimes, I don’t want to get up at 4:45 in the morning to go to the pool and swim. Sometimes, the night before, I’ll weigh whether I really need to go, maybe I could just walk for exercise later in the day instead. Sometimes, when my alarm goes off, I lay in bed and debate whether to go.

At that point, the cats are walking on me, so I have to get up to feed them anyway. But sometimes I consider, should I just put my robe on and get back in bed after I feed them? Or should I suit up?

When I get to the pool, sometimes I think, well, I can always stop early if I don’t feel like doing the full workout. Fifteen laps isn’t 25, but it’s better than zero. And then I start swimming, and I think, I can stop after this set if I want to.

Sometimes, I go through all of those debates with myself. I debate because it’s hard, because I don’t want to, because I want to skip ahead to the breakfast part of my day.

But one of my favorite moments in life, and it happens almost every time I go through all of this mental nonsense about “do I swim? do I not swim?”, one of my favorite moments that I savor every time it happens, is when I touch the wall after my 25th lap and know that despite it all, I swam. I did something good for myself, I didn’t give in, I didn’t give up, and now I’m done, I got it over with, I don’t have to exercise any more that day, it wasn’t really that bad, after all, and I feel kinda good, and now I get to get out and get dressed and go home to drink coffee and eat my oatmeal with berries and nuts and nutella.

Daily writing prompt

Describe one of your favorite moments.

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