the second day is the hardest

or, now you know what's going to happen, you have to choose to come back.

The first day I stepped into the gym, I was overwhelmed.

At 5am, the noise was intense - instructors yelling, people shouting over music, other people turning up for the next class and calling out greetings to people they knew.

 

It was still pandemic times, so masks and social distancing were the norm while people weren't in class.

People started to leave, and the coaches called for the next class to come through.

And I didn't know where I was going for my class, or a single face in the room.

The tears started as I busied myself to start moving, and I stopped and let them flow.

A coach came over, introduced herself, and talked me through the first steps of the class.

And I made it through to the end.

My next class was booked for Saturday, a slightly later start.

Getting out of bed was hard.

Getting dressed was harder.

Driving there, parking, getting out of the car, all hard tasks to do.

But at the end of that second session, I knew I'd be back for the third.

(Initially, I was attending 3 classes a week for 6 weeks, with an overall goal of embedding the habit of exercising)

It is often said that getting started is the hard part, but I have always found that coming back for the second time is even harder - because now you know what's going to happen you have to make a conscious choice to keep coming back.

Today has been unexpectedly busy for me - tuckshop, admin, grocery shopping - and suddenly it was 3pm and I hadn't written a word.

But after an hour of typing and deleting and typing and deleting, I didn't really know what I wanted to write or how to even get the words out.

Today, I'm making a decision to come back again, even when all the noise in my head (I got a phone call thirty minutes ago telling me my kid is suspended for the next two days *insert head bang emoji*) is so loud.

Maybe I'll do ok with this showing up thing.

What are you showing up for today?