The Trials of Kishi, the Gray Jedi: Gray Knight

[Mistr]

Oh, Kishi, that just sucks. I'm glad you can be there to help support your friend and his baby.

 

I think you are doing the right thing to give yourself some flexibility in your challenge. You have to modify your schedule all the time because of work and when your clients have time. It's only fair that you can move your activities around to make the best of your own time. No one is worried about you slacking off.

[Kishi]

just wanted to give you this:

 

 

 

Oh, Kishi, that just sucks. I'm glad you can be there to help support your friend and his baby.

 

I think you are doing the right thing to give yourself some flexibility in your challenge. You have to modify your schedule all the time because of work and when your clients have time. It's only fair that you can move your activities around to make the best of your own time. No one is worried about you slacking off.

 

Yeah, me too. I've got support coming out of the woodwork for me at the job, people volunteering to get my shift for that day covered. It's good that I can be there. Just sucks that it has to be like this.

 

Thanks. I'm not too worried about slacking off, but it kind of worries me, sometimes. If movement is medicine, then I'm prone to mixing my prescriptions. There's no telling how that can go.

 

*

 

AX: 1/1

 

Pull Up: 1/1

 

Cleaning: 0/1

 

Lent: 1/1

 

Phew. Rough day. We changed up some procedures at work, and the adjustment is not so happy. I need to figure out how to rebalance the workload for that particular duty.

 

Xero went well today. I'm pushing through with minimal rest at this point - ran a 'Challenge' workout yesterday where I had to perform an exercise to failure, rest two minutes, then do the same exercise for 1.5xfailure, with very strict guidelines for what constitutes rest. I've passed that test every single time, but it challenges me every single time too. Today was the drop-set strength day, but that's going well. Every primary move is up in the reps, and while some of the secondaries are lagging, I think that might actually be okay. Means I'm leaving more out in the primary moves.

 

Pull ups are going okay. Tendonitis is dying down, but I still feel a sort of muffled pain sensation down in that flexor region around the elbow. It's getting better, but I don't feel like this is the time to up my reps. Though, if it stays like this, I might go ahead and swallow my pride and just strap a band around the bar and keep going. I'd hate to have to do it so soon, though...

 

Lent was hard today. I finally had a chance to sit with the fact that my friend is dead. And that I'm not okay with how okay I feel. Like, I feel like I owe her more than I'm giving. But I don't know if that's a price I paid already. I mean, I kind of figured she was done when that happened and when I heard the news that the eclampsia had caused enough pressure to affect her brain stem. All the automatic stuff was at risk, and from an outside perspective, given her odds, it seems like this was inevitable. All we were doing - all our prayers, all our hope - felt to me like we were posturing. I think we all knew how this had to end. Either it would have been months or years from now, or it would have happened soon. As it did.

 

Sitting with that, I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat. Not the beat, but the in-between. That place where you take for granted that you have another beat coming. And I found myself contemplating that it wouldn't beat again, that it would just stop, and I thought nonononono beat you bastard come on and it did. And all I could think about was that I needed to eat and drink everything in the apartment, and make out with a girl, and get in a fight, and somehow do this all at the same time. I just wanted to feel something. Anything.

 

I was really, really close. I wish I could say that I prayed in that moment and that God and me got a bit closer, but in the end, that didn't happen. Still, there was a voice in my head telling me to stop and walk away. I think it was me. Maybe it wasn't.

 

But my Lent is kept, and I maintain my discipline. Maybe, as my meditation continues, I can take up prayer as the next step, make this conversation truly go both ways. After all, I'm learning to listen. I should learn to speak like it matters.

[Bekah]

I have no words. If I just sit there while you feel, is that helpful? You can imagine that if it helps

*biggest hugs*

[Kyellan]

Sitting with that, I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat. Not the beat, but the in-between. That place where you take for granted that you have another beat coming. And I found myself contemplating that it wouldn't beat again, that it would just stop, and I thought nonononono beat you bastard come on and it did. And all I could think about was that I needed to eat and drink everything in the apartment, and make out with a girl, and get in a fight, and somehow do this all at the same time. I just wanted to feel something. Anything.

 

I had a moment like this once, although not with my heartbeat, but with my breath. In the grip of the worst panic attack of my life (thank you, house-buying and mortgage process) I was 100% certain that I was having a heart attack. My chest was so tight that even sucking in a tiny bit of air was excruciating. I sat on the couch, laboring to even wheeze, and for the first time ever I had this thought:

 

It's too hard. Maybe it would just be easier to stop.

 

A thousand things ran through my mind as I was utterly certain that I was about to die. That moment of clarity was really powerful. It still moves me, from time to time.

 

I stopped, and I was certain that I had died there on the couch. Fortunately, I woke up a few minutes later, gray and shaking but mostly unharmed.

 

I still think about that moment, though. I probably always will.

 

Sometimes we find those moments in the strangest places, eh?

[CourtnieMarie]

i hope you can find some light today, kish.

[BlackTezca]

I'm glad that you were able to keep your lent and I really hope that things get a little brighter, a little lighter.  I wish I had more words to say, but I have plenty of support to give.

 

[Teirin]

As Bekah said, there are no words.  Take the time, meditate and think, and take care. 

 

[stillskies]

Lent was hard today. I finally had a chance to sit with the fact that my friend is dead. And that I'm not okay with how okay I feel. Like, I feel like I owe her more than I'm giving. But I don't know if that's a price I paid already. I mean, I kind of figured she was done when that happened and when I heard the news that the eclampsia had caused enough pressure to affect her brain stem. All the automatic stuff was at risk, and from an outside perspective, given her odds, it seems like this was inevitable. All we were doing - all our prayers, all our hope - felt to me like we were posturing. I think we all knew how this had to end. Either it would have been months or years from now, or it would have happened soon. As it did.

 

Sitting with that, I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat. Not the beat, but the in-between. That place where you take for granted that you have another beat coming. And I found myself contemplating that it wouldn't beat again, that it would just stop, and I thought nonononono beat you bastard come on and it did. And all I could think about was that I needed to eat and drink everything in the apartment, and make out with a girl, and get in a fight, and somehow do this all at the same time. I just wanted to feel something. Anything.

 

I was really, really close. I wish I could say that I prayed in that moment and that God and me got a bit closer, but in the end, that didn't happen. Still, there was a voice in my head telling me to stop and walk away. I think it was me. Maybe it wasn't.

 

But my Lent is kept, and I maintain my discipline. Maybe, as my meditation continues, I can take up prayer as the next step, make this conversation truly go both ways. After all, I'm learning to listen. I should learn to speak like it matters.

 

I've gotten to a point that I'm numb about death. It terrifies me, and whenever someone I love is in the hospital, I'm paralyzed by fear. But in the instance that they pass, I'm numb. I feel sadness, but it's never as strong as the grief everyone else around me is feeling. The last time I was torn up by grief was when I found out my stepmom and stepbrother had been killed in a car accident, and, with the intervening years providing clarity, it was less that they had died and more that I hadn't been told until a week later. The point being that grief comes differently to people; some people grieve during the decline, when they know the inevitable is coming. Others cling to hope and grieve when the person has passed. Some people feel it deeply, others feel it less intensely. For some, the grief comes immediately, for others, it hits them months later. There's no such thing as a right way to grieve. 

 

I've been stuck in that place, too. More times than I care to admit. When you're not concentrating on it, that space is imperceptible, but when you focus, those few seconds span forever. It's one of the reasons I can't count my breathing - I end up giving myself an attack because the time between breaths stretches on and I start to think I'm suffocating.

 

I'm sorry for your loss. And I hope that you find comfort with the people around you. ♥

[karinajean]

oh Kishi. Grief is so hard, and so horrible, and so PERSONAL at the end of the day. I am still knocked down sometimes for my loved ones who have moved on several years ago when I think that they are no longer with me here. it's the stopping, that ultimate stopping - no matter what we believe about the afterlife - that is so hard to manage. the part that we are still moving forward and we don't have them with us. OUR grief. OUR loss.

 

I do want you know that, despite how very personal and different I think grief is, that the survivors guilt is very common, very ok to feel, and totally not to be listened to. there is no why. there's only tomorrow.

[Kishi]

I have no words. If I just sit there while you feel, is that helpful? You can imagine that if it helps

*biggest hugs*

 

Thanks! Actually, it did help, yeah. Thank you.

 

I had a moment like this once, although not with my heartbeat, but with my breath. In the grip of the worst panic attack of my life (thank you, house-buying and mortgage process) I was 100% certain that I was having a heart attack. My chest was so tight that even sucking in a tiny bit of air was excruciating. I sat on the couch, laboring to even wheeze, and for the first time ever I had this thought:

 

It's too hard. Maybe it would just be easier to stop.

 

A thousand things ran through my mind as I was utterly certain that I was about to die. That moment of clarity was really powerful. It still moves me, from time to time.

 

I stopped, and I was certain that I had died there on the couch. Fortunately, I woke up a few minutes later, gray and shaking but mostly unharmed.

 

I still think about that moment, though. I probably always will.

 

Sometimes we find those moments in the strangest places, eh?

 

Yeah. I don't really know what to make of it. Like, I've had that kind of hyper-awareness before, but I don't know that I can remember ever taking a morbid turn with it before. It was strange. But, getting a good night's sleep definitely helped with that.

 

i hope you can find some light today, kish.

 

I did! Am! I'm good! See below.

 

I'm glad that you were able to keep your lent and I really hope that things get a little brighter, a little lighter.  I wish I had more words to say, but I have plenty of support to give.

 

 

 

As Bekah said, there are no words.  Take the time, meditate and think, and take care. 

 

 

 

I've gotten to a point that I'm numb about death. It terrifies me, and whenever someone I love is in the hospital, I'm paralyzed by fear. But in the instance that they pass, I'm numb. I feel sadness, but it's never as strong as the grief everyone else around me is feeling. The last time I was torn up by grief was when I found out my stepmom and stepbrother had been killed in a car accident, and, with the intervening years providing clarity, it was less that they had died and more that I hadn't been told until a week later. The point being that grief comes differently to people; some people grieve during the decline, when they know the inevitable is coming. Others cling to hope and grieve when the person has passed. Some people feel it deeply, others feel it less intensely. For some, the grief comes immediately, for others, it hits them months later. There's no such thing as a right way to grieve. 

 

I've been stuck in that place, too. More times than I care to admit. When you're not concentrating on it, that space is imperceptible, but when you focus, those few seconds span forever. It's one of the reasons I can't count my breathing - I end up giving myself an attack because the time between breaths stretches on and I start to think I'm suffocating.

 

I'm sorry for your loss. And I hope that you find comfort with the people around you. ♥

 

Yeah, and actually, as I've thought about it, that's what happened with me. When I first heard that she'd been hospitalized, I had this sinking sense that it was over. I'm pretty pessimistic in general, but for some reason it just made too much sense to me that she was going to die, and when I prayed, it was like I was grieving already.

 

Maybe more grief will come, but you're right. There's no right way to grieve, and it would explain my emotional state really well to say that I've already grieved her. Now we just have to say goodbye.

 

Thanks.

 

oh Kishi. Grief is so hard, and so horrible, and so PERSONAL at the end of the day. I am still knocked down sometimes for my loved ones who have moved on several years ago when I think that they are no longer with me here. it's the stopping, that ultimate stopping - no matter what we believe about the afterlife - that is so hard to manage. the part that we are still moving forward and we don't have them with us. OUR grief. OUR loss.

 

I do want you know that, despite how very personal and different I think grief is, that the survivors guilt is very common, very ok to feel, and totally not to be listened to. there is no why. there's only tomorrow.

 

Yeah. Grief, I guess, is a persistent thing. It comes and it goes and it comes again, and it's not something that falls easily under control.

 

Thank you for that. I'm glad to know it, and I will no longer listen to it.

 

*

 

So, uh, today is interesting. Today is my birthday, and I'm turning 29.

 

And I wasn't sure what to think about it. I got the day off, I'm gonna train hard, and then I'm going to take a big ol' cheat day while binging on the Netflix. It's normally a very happy time for me, even if I don't make a big deal out of it to everyone around me. All the same, leading up to today, I wasn't sure if I had the right to be happy.

 

I got a text from a friend of mine who was helping our Pastor prepare for the funeral. He asked me where I thought she was. I told him that I figured she'd met Jesus on her own terms, and that she was with him now.

 

This led to two thoughts: 1) that she's happy now, where she is (or at the very least, she's neither sad nor suffering), and 2) that if she's happy, then truly I have nothing to grieve but her absence. It's okay for me to be happy today.

 

So I will be. I will celebrate today - that I am alive, that I have a 29-year winning streak against the Reaper, and that I got to spend some of that with a pretty cool person.

 

Thank you, nerds, for being with me through this. I don't know where my emotions are going to go, but I can't say thank you enough for everyone being with me through this. I mean it every time I say/gif it.

[CourtnieMarie]

yay! i didn't want to blow up your spot earlier but since you said it first....

 

[Teirin]

Glad you're in a mental space where you can be happy today.  You deserve it.  *hugs*

 

 

Happy Birthday :-)  Have great Birthday food and TV binges!

[Kishi]

Oh, also. Took progress photos today before the foodage. Looks like progress.

 

[BlackTezca]

Glad you're in a mental space where you can be happy today.  You deserve it.  *hugs*

 

I am also quite happy that you're in a mental space to enjoy today!  I mean holy crap it's your birthday!!

 

[Kishi]

yay! i didn't want to blow up your spot earlier but since you said it first....

 

Glad you're in a mental space where you can be happy today.  You deserve it.  *hugs*

 

 

Happy Birthday :-)  Have great Birthday food and TV binges!

I am also quite happy that you're in a mental space to enjoy today!  I mean holy crap it's your birthday!!

 

 

 

Thanks, guys.

[Bekah]

 

Yeah, and actually, as I've thought about it, that's what happened with me. When I first heard that she'd been hospitalized, I had this sinking sense that it was over. I'm pretty pessimistic in general, but for some reason it just made too much sense to me that she was going to die, and when I prayed, it was like I was grieving already.

 

Maybe more grief will come, but you're right. There's no right way to grieve, and it would explain my emotional state really well to say that I've already grieved her. Now we just have to say goodbye.

 

Thanks.

This is how it is for some people. When my grandma died a few years ago, I don't think I even cried till like a month later, and at the time, I was very numb and all too, bc we were all at the nursing home for a week before she actually died and I realized exactly what you said. My family was totally different, very emotional and overwhelmed and all and even now my mom and aunt are that way. I bought myself a ring that is a reminder of her for me, and I think of her every time I see it...and that works for me. So feel what you feel and know that you are doing and being exactly how you are supposed to

 

So, uh, today is interesting. Today is my birthday, and I'm turning 29.

Happy Birthday You are growing up so fast *tear* lololol thanks for making me feel old

[ladylydia]

     Happy  Birthday!!!!  

[Kishi]

This is how it is for some people. When my grandma died a few years ago, I don't think I even cried till like a month later, and at the time, I was very numb and all too, bc we were all at the nursing home for a week before she actually died and I realized exactly what you said. My family was totally different, very emotional and overwhelmed and all and even now my mom and aunt are that way. I bought myself a ring that is a reminder of her for me, and I think of her every time I see it...and that works for me. So feel what you feel and know that you are doing and being exactly how you are supposed to

Happy Birthday You are growing up so fast *tear* lololol thanks for making me feel old

 

Yeah, you're right. This is kind of who I am. I'm just a very emotionally flat person. I never seem to be terribly involved or to feel things in the way others do, though I think it's less a matter of being incapable and more a matter of just being incredibly grounded and making an outlet of just about everything I get my hands on.

 

No worries, I'll be old someday too.

 

     Happy  Birthday!!!!  

 

THANK YOU!!!!

 

*

 

AX: 2/2

 

Pull Up: 2/2

 

Cleaning: 0/1

 

Lent: 2/2

 

Well, didn't think I was going to get the pull ups done. I thought I was going to train and then eat a big ol' bunch of food like I used to do, but then I thought to myself that I could do it while I drank my morning coffee. Which I proceeded to do, and it worked just fine. And no tendonitis at all. Yay.

 

AX was the Killswitch workout - two reps unilateral, one rep plyometric, done to failure for lower, upper, and core. Rinse and repeat for five rounds.

 

I ended up not bingeing on the Netflix like I thought I would. I just couldn't find it in me to watch a thing. I spent more time listening to music on YouTube while reading fanfiction and admitting to myself that, as out of practice as I feel, I'm still better than a lot of what I read out there.

 

Almost broke my Lent by accident. Almost. Not quite... just wasn't mindful and almost slipped back to that habit again. Not cool.

 

Anyway, gonna finish drinking my beer and go to bed.

[erosan]

almost is the keyword there, my friend. because almost makes for a HUGE gap between one possibility and the other. try removing the word from these sentences and see how much difference it makes:

I almost broke a leg

I almost won the lottery

I almost started a war

I think if anything the almost makes your victory more impressive. keep it up, you are doing great so far

[karinajean]

Happy happy birthday!

And nice progress!

Sent from my iPhone while riding a unicorn through the cosmos.

[Kishi]

almost is the keyword there, my friend. because almost makes for a HUGE gap between one possibility and the other. try removing the word from these sentences and see how much difference it makes:

I almost broke a leg

I almost won the lottery

I almost started a war

I think if anything the almost makes your victory more impressive. keep it up, you are doing great so far

 

Wow, you look at it that way, it makes the whole thing sound a lot more epic. I like your perspective, man.

 

Happy happy birthday!

And nice progress!

Sent from my iPhone while riding a unicorn through the cosmos.

 

Thank you twice!

[TeaKwonDo]

Sounds like this experience has made you stronger in a quiet way, more attuned to yourself. Congrats on keeping the Lent, and happy belated, bro. You're doing awesome.

[Kishi]

Sounds like this experience has made you stronger in a quiet way, more attuned to yourself. Congrats on keeping the Lent, and happy belated, bro. You're doing awesome.

 

You know, I really like to think it has. Thanks!

 

*

 

AX: 3/3

 

Pull Up: 3/3

 

Cleaning: 1/1

 

Lent: 3/3

 

Ah, sweet rest day. How I have missed thee.

 

Took the day to fast after the binge. Feels good not to eat anything. I'll be breaking it with some ground bison in a bit, though.

 

Dietary stuff is going to be interesting come the weekend. There's going to be the funeral, and social eating that comes afterward, and then on Sunday we have a Bread Bash, which means preparing and trying stuff. It'll be fun, and it has the potential to screw my calories/macros something fierce. I don't know if that's going to involve extra food on top of trying things or what exactly's going to happen. Still, given that I'm mentally prepared to roll with it as opposed to checking out and going for fast food, I think I'm probably going to be okay.

 

Guh, and then my folks are gonna be in town to celebrate my birfday on the 14th. ;; It's like, "Guys. Guys. I suddenly managed to get my body fat percentage down again. Can't you just throw a kettlebell at me or something and call it a day?"

 

Oh well. Life.

[erosan]

Wow, you look at it that way, it makes the whole thing sound a lot more epic. I like your perspective, man.

I think the mettle of a man is not tested during easy times, but during dire times. Facing temptation and overcoming it or even failing to but learning from it... that is what makes one stronger.

[ladylydia]

I will happily throw a kettlebell at you and call it a day.