craving
Is there one thing in your life, or alternatively are there multiple specific things, that basically define your schedule, in a way so fundamental that they are an integral part of your life, you can't imagine living without them, and if these things don't happen on schedule you feel all weird? I'm talking about things that form the reference markers in your life, that everything else fits around? Things that you're constantly looking forward to or back from, consciously and subconsciously? I have two such things in my life. The second of these things is what is inspiring me to write this entry, because I miss it right now. But for completeness, I may as well document them both.
The time period from Friday evening until Saturday evening, every week, is reserved out of my life, as a time period set apart to do things differently than the rest of the week. This could rightfully be called a religious observance, and its name (at least in the English language) is the Sabbath. And the Sabbath is defined in a book called the Bible, so if one surmised that I am Christian, one would be correct. But to me it's more fundamental than a religion... it's just part of my life. On a rare occasion if this day, for social, practical, or emergency reasons, is not spent as a day off from the normal cares of life, including a gathering together with other people who also keep the Sabbath (for a religious/worship service in practice, although I'm not sure how fundamental that is to my mind),... then throughout the next week, I feel like I am living outside of normal time, with no reference point in time to compute from. I was brought up from the earliest infancy in this tradition (in fact, one of my earliest memories, from when I was about 6 months old, is related to a disturbance in this particular time marker) so a weekly Sabbath for me was one of the first ways that I started to organize the world in my mind. One could (and many do) argue the point of whether it is a religiously required thing for a Christian, but I hate this sort of discussion. I just know that for me, personally, I would feel lost without it.
The second marker around which my life fits is completely different, and has not been a part of my life for as long. For anybody that doesn't know, I love gymnastics. I don't know exactly when the seeds of this love started sprouting in my childhood (there was that pair of beautiful sisters that did gymnastics ;) ), but I know that by the time I was in junior high school, I liked it; and by the end of high school, I was actively seeking a way to start taking a class in it. But my high school days were occupied with school, and the one time I managed to sign up for a class through the school it was canceled, so I didn't really get the chance to begin learning gymnastics until my first year in college. But ever since then I have taken classes, with no more than a few months' interruption at any point in time. I now take an adult gymnastics class, usually twice a week. At the gym I've been going to for the last couple years, these classes are on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
Of course, most people wonder why a guy who is in his late 20s, who is 6'2" tall, and who therefore they would guess is (on average) too old, the wrong gender, and the wrong height for gymnastics, would want to do it... but I have no explanation, and I don't need one. I just love it. There's a wonderful sense of confidence and enjoyment that comes with knowing my body well enough to be comfortable upside-down, spinning, flipping... to not be afraid of heights, and to understand gravity and kinetics in a very personal way--to truly be able to interact with my world. And don't deny it--if you can't do a standing back-flip, you're at least a little bit jealous. :) 'Cause I can!
But my point about the gymnastics is not how cool it is, or how much I like it. It is that it's become such a fixture in my life, both mentally and physically, that it, too, forms reference points for my life. As the week goes by, on Tuesday nights after class, I know I have two more days until I can get back into the gym. My Wednesday nights are open for planning, exactly because I don't have gymnastics class that night. After the Thursday night class, I have 5 days until I get back to the gym the next Tuesday. (Obviously from time to time in the past, and quite possibly in the future, as I switch gyms from time to time or if the gym schedules change, Tuesday and Thursday may change to different days; I may be practicing once a week, or three times; the details aren't important. I'm just trying to emphasize how ingrained in my life it is!) And when I miss class, for example if I'm traveling, or for other reasons of my own, or during the winter break (this week and next) when the gym shuts down every year, I physically miss it. I get urges to just do flips, handstands, handsprings, cartwheels, etc., wherever I am. And I start getting more and more restless the longer I'm away from the gym--the urges to do gymnastics get stronger the longer I've been away from it. Could you even say I'm semi-addicted to it? ;)
You could take away a lot of things out of my life, and I wouldn't feel lost or restless. I could be doing something besides computer programming for a job. Or not even have a paying job. I could have a different set of friends; I could be closer to or further from various parts of my family. I could live with different people, have a different car, more, or less income. I could move to another city, even a completely different climate. And I think none of it would bother me. I'm not sure about moving out of the country--it wouldn't bother me for a long time, but I wonder if I might eventually feel out of place? I wouldn't know without trying it. But take away one of those two things, the Sabbath, or my gymnastics, and I feel like I would slowly grow crazy. :) Or music. I would eventually go crazy without music too. But I will always have that.
The time period from Friday evening until Saturday evening, every week, is reserved out of my life, as a time period set apart to do things differently than the rest of the week. This could rightfully be called a religious observance, and its name (at least in the English language) is the Sabbath. And the Sabbath is defined in a book called the Bible, so if one surmised that I am Christian, one would be correct. But to me it's more fundamental than a religion... it's just part of my life. On a rare occasion if this day, for social, practical, or emergency reasons, is not spent as a day off from the normal cares of life, including a gathering together with other people who also keep the Sabbath (for a religious/worship service in practice, although I'm not sure how fundamental that is to my mind),... then throughout the next week, I feel like I am living outside of normal time, with no reference point in time to compute from. I was brought up from the earliest infancy in this tradition (in fact, one of my earliest memories, from when I was about 6 months old, is related to a disturbance in this particular time marker) so a weekly Sabbath for me was one of the first ways that I started to organize the world in my mind. One could (and many do) argue the point of whether it is a religiously required thing for a Christian, but I hate this sort of discussion. I just know that for me, personally, I would feel lost without it.
The second marker around which my life fits is completely different, and has not been a part of my life for as long. For anybody that doesn't know, I love gymnastics. I don't know exactly when the seeds of this love started sprouting in my childhood (there was that pair of beautiful sisters that did gymnastics ;) ), but I know that by the time I was in junior high school, I liked it; and by the end of high school, I was actively seeking a way to start taking a class in it. But my high school days were occupied with school, and the one time I managed to sign up for a class through the school it was canceled, so I didn't really get the chance to begin learning gymnastics until my first year in college. But ever since then I have taken classes, with no more than a few months' interruption at any point in time. I now take an adult gymnastics class, usually twice a week. At the gym I've been going to for the last couple years, these classes are on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
Of course, most people wonder why a guy who is in his late 20s, who is 6'2" tall, and who therefore they would guess is (on average) too old, the wrong gender, and the wrong height for gymnastics, would want to do it... but I have no explanation, and I don't need one. I just love it. There's a wonderful sense of confidence and enjoyment that comes with knowing my body well enough to be comfortable upside-down, spinning, flipping... to not be afraid of heights, and to understand gravity and kinetics in a very personal way--to truly be able to interact with my world. And don't deny it--if you can't do a standing back-flip, you're at least a little bit jealous. :) 'Cause I can!
But my point about the gymnastics is not how cool it is, or how much I like it. It is that it's become such a fixture in my life, both mentally and physically, that it, too, forms reference points for my life. As the week goes by, on Tuesday nights after class, I know I have two more days until I can get back into the gym. My Wednesday nights are open for planning, exactly because I don't have gymnastics class that night. After the Thursday night class, I have 5 days until I get back to the gym the next Tuesday. (Obviously from time to time in the past, and quite possibly in the future, as I switch gyms from time to time or if the gym schedules change, Tuesday and Thursday may change to different days; I may be practicing once a week, or three times; the details aren't important. I'm just trying to emphasize how ingrained in my life it is!) And when I miss class, for example if I'm traveling, or for other reasons of my own, or during the winter break (this week and next) when the gym shuts down every year, I physically miss it. I get urges to just do flips, handstands, handsprings, cartwheels, etc., wherever I am. And I start getting more and more restless the longer I'm away from the gym--the urges to do gymnastics get stronger the longer I've been away from it. Could you even say I'm semi-addicted to it? ;)
You could take away a lot of things out of my life, and I wouldn't feel lost or restless. I could be doing something besides computer programming for a job. Or not even have a paying job. I could have a different set of friends; I could be closer to or further from various parts of my family. I could live with different people, have a different car, more, or less income. I could move to another city, even a completely different climate. And I think none of it would bother me. I'm not sure about moving out of the country--it wouldn't bother me for a long time, but I wonder if I might eventually feel out of place? I wouldn't know without trying it. But take away one of those two things, the Sabbath, or my gymnastics, and I feel like I would slowly grow crazy. :) Or music. I would eventually go crazy without music too. But I will always have that.