I…Am… A Monster…

I eat warriors for dinner.

These thoughts were going through my head, while I was sitting in the gym locker room. Just sitting there, silent, immobile, contemplating. I thought about how close I had come to throwing up, and how on my last set, I literally saw tens and tens of colorful stars popping up all around me… twinkling for some 30 seconds. They kept increasing, and I had taken that as a sign that I was about to faint. But I didn’t. I was sitting there, thinking. I had just pushed my body to the maximum limit of what it can endure. My forearm muscles were so exhaused i could barely hold the pen to write down the numbers on the paper. I was thinking of how long it took me to drink that protein shake, and how i could barely finish half of it cause my body was too beat. I almost threw it all up. I was thinking, now that the first week of Meltdown was over, how I’m supposed to increase my mega-sets from 3 to 4. How is that physically possible? My brain was having a hard time even accepting that such a thing is possible. But I was proud of what I had just pushed myself through. I am a monster. I eat warriors for dinner.

But then, I thought to myself, “If I can push myself into such extremes, and if I am willing to put myself through so much pain, then how come I can’t even push myself to do all my prayers on time? And that’s not even counting fajr!” Even a little girl can get herself to do all the prayers on time, and I can’t. I’m no monster. I’m no warrior. I’m weaker than a little girl.

“Is there anything wrong?”, asked the locker room attendant, while tapping me on the shoulder. I realized I’ve just been sitting there, in the locker room, for 10 minutes. Not changing my clothes… Just sitting there, silently thinking to myself what I just wrote above, just trying to breathe normally. I didn’t even know how to answer his question. I couldn’t even begin to express how tired I was… but I didn’t need to, because he saw that I can’t even answer him, and I just gave a small laugh at my inability to answer him, and at the pain I was going through. And he laughed as he understood. Then, I got myself to answer him, saying: “if only you’ve just been through what I’ve just been through..” but I couldn’t get myself to finish the sentence, the “you’d know what’s wrong”…

“No thanks,” he said while laughing, “it’s hard enough for me what I do, bringing people towels and water.”