Enter Here for Happy

Let me just say this: Grad school is hard. It’s really freaking hard. Combine working 20 hours a week at one job, with 10 hours a week at another job, with 20 hours of class and homework a week, with having basically no idea what I’ll be doing in a year and a half, with being 22 and emotional and your best friends living far, far away… you get me– ready to bust open like a tomato and complaining a lot.

Today, a wise soul told me “if grad school was easy everyone would do it!!” (Coupled with being financially responsible… that it is not.)

It’s because of this insanity that I require one hour a day for myself at the gym.

On Saturday that included attempting “11.2”– 15 min. AMRAP of 9 deadlifts, 12 hand-release push ups, and 15 box jumps.

After who-knows-what round with 10+ minutes left on the clock, I thought to myself, holy crap I am exhausted. HOW has it only been five minutes?! Heather is two full rounds ahead of me and she has a strained quad… I have to catch up to Heather.

Look at us, voluntarily subjecting ourselves to this misery– me, with  literally hundreds of pages of reading to complete for next week but instead I was dripping sweat all over the floor, and Heather with her injury. At this point in the morning I was already well aware of the 10 hours of work I should be doing instead of being at the gym, and I bet Heather was already feeling how her quad is going to hurt like hell after she finished this workout.

Now look at us again.  Here we both are, doing this crazy thing because it makes us feel powerful, it makes us feel confident, and because we both know that this 15 minutes is going to end, and we are going to finish “11.2”, whether we’ve finished 3 rounds or 13 rounds. Proving to ourselves that we can and should, regardless of those things telling us that we can’t or shouldn’t.

Grad school relatability: I will survive, even when I look at the clock and realize how much farther I have to go. (See what I did there?)

And all of a sudden I’m like, hell yeah!

When I think about it, a lot of these blog posts act as an avenue for me to validate how and why I am so passionate about this sport. And a lot of people probably can’t relate directly to CrossFit, and that’s okay. But think about anything that required you to persevere to some degree of success. For me, that success happens every time I finish a workout or read a 150 pg. book on discrimination in two days (it just happened). For others, it may be presenting in front of a class, having a challenging conversation with a friend, or getting to bed before 11pm one night a week.

Whatever it is, celebrate it! Because it’s worth celebrating. Because you rock.

(And strong really is happy.)

Sending self love,

Maggie