A few days ago I was sitting in my rocking chair, exhausted and slightly irritable with a tinge of anxiety dancing around me like fire flames. As I turned my head to look out the window, I noticed the sun setting. It was absolutely stunning; the colors nature creates never cease to amaze me.
I stared at it for a while and I thought to myself “I can’t wait to show Baby the sunset. I wonder if he’ll like it.” Then it brought up a familiar feeling in my chest, during one of the best times in my life, when the dream of a perfect body pulled me out of bed and drug me to the gym for seven years. The deeper the journey went, the more I had to give up and the more I sacrificed the more I changed.
Towards the end of it all in the summer months, I woke up early enough for cardio to see the sun rise and in the evening I left the gym late enough to see the sun setting on the walk home. Even when I was hangry and sore, I remember the colors and how beautiful it was. There in my living room, as I stared through the balcony doors, I was reminded how many sunrises and sunsets I miss out on now. Maybe this one caught my eye because of the nostalgia it brought with it but I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t help but miss that time in my life that carried so much meaning with it, and how fortunate I was to be reminded of that time with something as beautiful and perfect as a nature painted sky.
Then, As the colors started to fade to darkness I remembered how those beautiful images painted in the sky never last. . . how quickly it turns into night or day and no matter how many paintings you see, they are always different in the most subtle ways. Some take your breath away, others make you warm or sometimes even sad, but most we never get a chance to see because they’re gone in a flash.
And just like the paintings in the sky, each moment in our lives mirror the same. Bodybuilding, this magnificent journey came into my life and now it’s gone, never to be replicated again. Vacations we take, jokes we laugh at, meals we eat all come and go in a flash, and most of the time they go when we’re not even looking.
If we’re lucky every now and again we can take it all in and all it’s marvel and beauty for the truly special moment that it is. And we can even share these magnificent moments with our loved ones and hope that they like it.