Weight

It’s been a few tougher days since I last checked in. Nothing dramatic. Just a steady, low-grade tiredness that occasionally swells into something heavier.

I keep waiting for the moment when basics start to feel enjoyable. The day when all this effort clearly tips into reward. But as the seasons shift and time keeps slipping past, I’m beginning to suspect that day may never really arrive.

And maybe that’s the point.

Every time I feel myself improving — even slightly — I push harder. Not out of punishment, but out of knowing that easing off too soon would quietly undo the very thing I’m here for. The goals themselves aren’t rigid or fixed. They’re more like quiet markers on the horizon, there to stop me braking too often, there to keep me moving in roughly the right direction.

This morning’s session was brutal. By the afternoon I felt wrung out enough to skip basics altogether. I don’t regret it. The space it created allowed for something gentler — slow Tai Chi on my own, moving without pressure, without an agenda. Just motion, breath, attention. It restored more than I expected.

Enough, at least, to return later with energy rather than resistance.

I don’t believe life is meant to feel relentlessly hard. If it does, I start to question why I’m doing it at all. Effort matters, but so does enjoyment — not as a reward, but as fuel.

I’ve always lived this way. Push when it counts. Ease when needed. It’s a rhythm that’s carried me through different lives, different ambitions. The goals may have changed, but the way I move toward them hasn’t.

And for now, that still feels right.