Observable Increments

Dearest Rachel –

Well, it seems like you can strike what I said yesterday about things not having changed from year to year at our Awana club. There are, in fact, a few fairly drastic changes this time around. In fact, I may be out of my usual job entirely – they seem to have figured out how to get along without me while I was gone (which, considering how long that was, probably should have been expected). Don’t worry, I think I’ll be able to find a new niche along the way, but in either case, those are topics for another time, I should think, as more information is revealed to me (allowing me to tell you about it in turn).

That’s the way life is around here at the moment, honey; things don’t progress all that noticeably from day to day, so it’s not as if anything I might have to tell you about is all that urgent, because it’s going to be much the same tomorrow as it is today or was yesterday. There may be momentary strides forward, but they’re usually followed by a slide back; while they may net to progress, such progress is glacially slow. So what’s the rush in telling you about it?

And this goes for just about every aspect of life, mine or anybody else’s. Actually, I suppose mine might be moving faster than most people’s, because I have a few specific, if still somewhat nebulous, goals I’m trying to reach – it’s easier to make progress when you know what direction you’re going in (or at least, what direction you want to go – as I said, sometimes the progress is very much three steps forward, two steps back, and that’s not even taking into account that some progression can be lateral or even diagonal). And yet, it still feels like I’m not getting anywhere, even as I keep moving.

It could be a case of just being impatient, of course. While I’ve no need to rush toward my goals, such as they are, the fact that the process of motion is so tiring makes me want to get over with it as quickly as possible. As a result, I’m hurrying myself toward a conclusion that is so far in the distance that all it causes me to do is to fall exhausted that much sooner – and the goal is still so far out on the horizon that it seems like I haven’t moved at all. I hardly need to tell you how frustrating that can be.

It has, however, caused me to realize something about my workouts at the gym that – while I still don’t like going there and doing thing, and I hope I never get to the point where I actually do, to be honest (the idea of turning into a “gym rat” is utterly repellent to me) – I can actually appreciate, and that is the fact that I can see progress being made in real time. Not so much that I’m building up muscles or anything like that – even more obvious things such as speed and endurance, while noticeably increasing over time, are as much of a slow progression over weeks and months – as just the passage of distance and the burning of calories.

Erin used to say that she found the idea of working out on a treadmill to be interminably boring, and given that she’s got a thing for being out in nature, I can certainly understand that. For my part, however, I’m a numbers guy – it kind of comes with the profession, although I can still recall watching television after school at a neighbor’s house while seated on the stationary bike they had in their family room, pedaling it throughout the time I spent waiting for Mom to come by to bring Jenn and me home, and watching the numbers on the odometer steadily increase – so being able to watch the distance traveled tick off, every hundredth of a mile at a time, keeps my attention to a certain extent.

This is augmented by the fact that I’m also watching the tally of calories being burned as I go along. I keep myself occupied by attempting to calculate how long it will take me to burn the next hundred; from six and a half minutes, to six, then five and a half, and sometimes I can get it down to five, depending on the speed and incline I ratchet the treadmill up to. If that’s too long to hold my attention, I start calculating in increments of twenty calories, as that slowly tapers down to once every minute as I increase the resistance. And soon, I’ve passed milestones like four miles covered, a thousand calories burned, and an hour passed on the supposedly ‘boring’ treadmill, and I can get on with the rest of my day, including eating breakfast with a clear conscience; all thanks to such observable increments which, unlike so much of the rest of the progress in my life, is always going in one direction – forward.

Anyway, with that being said, I need to get on with that “rest of my day,” honey. Keep an eye on me, if you will, and wish me luck; as always, I’m going to need it.