Morning started off. I believed it could be (and still can), but it isn’t the best start.
5:30, alarm set by my daughter goes off. She sleeps through, but her little brother, one room over, doesn’t. Awake, he comes out and asks if he could take a shower.
Seeing no reason or issue, I answer, “Yes.”
Shortly after, I sneak back into the bedroom for workout clothes to lift, and as I do, my wife asks, “Is Audrey up?”
“No.”
“Can you make sure she’s up. She wanted to take a shower…”
Of course she does.
Most mornings, no one showers. Then, when one does, everyone wants to—and home runs out of hot water, first-world troubles.
I spend five minutes trying to get our youngest to finish up.
Politeness does not expedite and his sister comes next. There are shouts down the hall.
“Get out. Be done.” I return and tell this time. Stern, serious, my voice has lost its gentleness.
Life lesson: if you set an alarm—get up. If you want to do something and don’t make it a priority, someone else will.
At least there will be enough time-offset for both women of the house to have hot water (this begins every such day with a better chance at happiness and positive outcomes).
On to a workout, I go downstairs.
Weight rack is still set up from last lift. Set for squats, I get a set then head to wake my eldest son.
“What time is it?” he asks, eyes sleepy and half-opened.
“5:45. Do you want to work out?”
Choice is his. I won’t force him to if he doesn’t. He’s getting old enough, he will be what he works and puts time into becoming. I want to help, encourage, and aid him into whoever that this is. I’m not here to control or define his life. I’m here to love and help him toward who he wants to be—who he says that is and who he shows it to be by action are not always the same, and I’d say that’s true with most of us.
We work out. Squatting, not centered in the rack, he clips right-side weights of the bar on the safety catch beneath as he hits low point of his squat.
He gets angry.
In his defense, we are using a six foot bar on new rack made for a full sized bar. There is little play for error or imbalance. Still, balanced and centered, the rack works great.
Often, we can dwell and fix on a problem, demanding situation to change itself when, if we merely took reality of condition for what it is, and adapt ourselves, the problem we—by demanding change of another—determine to make is no longer one at all.
He doesn’t see this, not in moment at least.
He centers the bar on his back but does not pay attention to his feet or centerline of his body when he steps back to begin the lift. They are little things worth giving attention. I point them out. He’d never noticed. Now he does, and paying attention, he doesn’t clip the rack again.
He’s doing great. Whether sees and believes or not—I do.
Next, we move to bench.
Prepping, he tells me how he pinched his finger a few days back doing shoulder press with dumbbells.
I make, perhaps, a paternal error. When all he wanted from me was to listen, I try to make a lesson.
He tells me how there were weights on the ground, and when he dropped his own dumbbells after the set, he pinched his fingers between the weights in his hands and the ones on the ground.
I try to offer proposal or solution for the future.
“Next time, we can put the other weights up before we lift.”
“That’s not my job! They weren’t mine.”
“But you saw the weights on the ground, and you didn’t move them, and you chose to exercise knowing they were there…and then they pinched you.”
“They weren’t mine.”
Maybe he just wanted me to listen. I don’t know how to help him.
Back to lift, he askes on the placement of his hands on the bar. He is growing—a lot—and his hand and spatial placement for exercise is changing.
I tell him to feel it out as his body feels best and to pay attention to the grip markings on the bar. So long as the ends of his thumbs are even from edge of the grip marks on the bar, he’ll be balanced and good.
He does great. He is adding weight. He is getting stronger. He pushes to failure—with more weight than we’ve ever done together.
“DON’T TOUCH THE BAR!” He commands as he pushes.
I don’t.
He pushes hard, raises full. I spot, and his left arm trails his right a bit, and right side weights hit into rack again. I help him rack before he lets go and left side smokes him in the face—not caught and secured to rack.
It’s a great rep, a great set, but all he is is angry.
I don’t know how to help him.
“We need a bigger bar,” he says again.
“We will. Have a little patience.”
“How long’s it been?” he asks in resentful and accusatory tone.
Pleading for patience, all of mine departs. “A FUCKING WEEK!…I love you. I want to help you. I want to encourage and do this with you, but you are making this not fun for me!” Compassion and gentleness are gone from voice.
I go on and back to the dumbbells, “Be the example. Set the standard. Even if they’re not yours, put them up. You’re the one that got hurt! Do better, show the right way, and other people will follow!”
I want to lift to start the day well. I want to feel accomplished, not demeaned, to feel good and release stress. I feel none of what I seek.
This isn’t how lifting’s supposed to be.
He’s doing great, but he wants to be mad, and so he is.
I don’t know how to help that. I’m not sure anybody can when it’s what another wants to be.
More, I feel the negativity spill over into me. Spirit takes upon a violence.
I don’t like it.
I put the violence into something. I do my last set, ten extra reps, throwing the weight as hard and as fast as I can.
I feel better, but not good. I disengage from the violence and trouble that I do not want to be.
We do an ab circuit to finish then start into rest of day.
No words.
He’s doing great. I pray I could help him see and acknowledge his progress, good, and growth, when all he sees (or expresses outwardly to me) is negativity.
Still, he’s my son. Sometimes, I struggle with that too.