This is my life

This is my life:

I awake each morning, even Saturdays, at least by 4am, rolling right out of bed, sometimes gracefully directly on the floor. Innately, my sore and heavy legs lead me right to the coffee pot, habitually pouring 2 large scoops of very dark coffee into the filter, preparing my daily liquid IV of caffeine and processed energy. I then prepare my eyes for the sudden jolt of florescent light, internet chaos, and the sounds of CNN and NPR.

A girl of routine and habits, I prepare for the day to come, first checking the daily schedule of clients, then pulling each folder and printing blank exercise spreadsheets. If not already on the floor, I grab every fitness magazine that I have and make a heaping pile of folders, papers, and endless exercise possibilities. Before I can develop each client's program, the bed has to be made, the gym bag has to be emptied and then packed, and lunch is then put on the stove.

Coffee brewed, poured and in hand, I now sit down on the floor, comfortably in oversize gray sweatpants and Nike tank top. I put each folder in order according to time of day that I will meet them, scan over the last 4 workouts that we have had, and begin developing a heart pumping, muscle building routine for each of my students. With the news stories of the previous day in the background, I flip through each magazine in hope of discovering at least one new exercise I can introduce to each client, for I have built my client roster on the foundation that we will usually never do the same workout twice, and that each client can always count doing an exercise that they have never performed before.

It's now 5am, folders are completed, gym bag packed, lunch in cooler, and IV is finished. I lay my black uniform on the bed, and truly there's never a day that I don't acknowledge how wonderful it is to be able to wear black workout clothes to work. Ahh, truly a dream come true, and a great departure from the many years of kackies and polos.

Though the alarm goes off at 4am, I still find myself rushing out of the door to arrive at the gym by 5:45am. And this will continuously make me laugh on the way to work, for my mother did always say that I was the greatest Dilly Dallier there was! Hey, fitness magazines and CNN will do that to me!!!!!!!

Car parked and luggage in hand, (yes you would think I was moving into the gym), I enter my daily playground. Each day that I open the doors of Pure Austin, I make it a point to enter gratefully. This is something I have done for years in the restaurant business. Management use to teach us to check your head at the door, take a deep breath, be grateful for the job that you have, and prepare yourself mentally to run around like chicken with your heads cut off! Though no chickens in sight, I make it a point to practice this ritual daily, and have been known to say I left something in the car just to re-enter the playground gratefully. This is important to me, for it was just seven months ago I found myself going through the motions of life, living somberly and habitually, praying and dreaming of the day that I would be doing what I am doing right now.

I am a personal trainer at the best gym in town. And this statement is not bias. Each day I am given the opportunity and privilege to live out what I not only have dreamed about, but what has filled many notebooks, journals, and waitress guest checks. I have lied in bed after long nights of taking orders and rolling silverware praying, thinking, and dreaming of what I wanted to do with my life, with my talents, and with all of the thoughts that have driven me to run miles on the roads.

It took one great athlete and the people she knew and had contact with to begin living my dream. It also took guts, asking the owner of the gym for an interview, for the opportunity to fly out to Austin on my own to be given a chance to work at his gym. The interview was on the day of my 30th birthday. I will never forget the day I left my twenties. It was the best interview ever, lasting 1 hour and a half, and it was a conversation that I will never forget. It did not feel like an interview. Here was a man who himself was living a dream, and I could tell this, through his smile and his energy, and the way his office felt like you were on vacation in a surf town. The questions were not only thoughtful, but were asked to reveal not only your qualifications but your soul and your passion.

Going into the interview I knew that my experience was not gym related, nor was my education, but my father had always taught me that life experience, especially the many years of waiting on tables, would lead me to where I was suppose to be. And at that moment, sitting in a chair, talking with a man who himself was grateful for every day and opportunity that he was granted with, I knew that I was where I was suppose to be. I remember thinking, while I was shaking and sweating uncontrollably, that if I was given the job, I would work harder than I had ever worked, and I would give thanks every day and make sure I gave back every day! And at that moment, after a conversation that would be put right into the special volt of the best words said, amongst those of my parents and coaches, I began my journey of living the dream!

So as the alarm goes off at 4am and my body rolls out of bed tired and sore, it only takes a few seconds to be reminded of why I awake before the sun, my friends, and most of my clients and colleagues. First, it just took one person to believe in me, to have faith that I can do the job that he was looking to fill the position of. Second, I made a pledge to not only myself and to my employer, but to the man above, and that you cannot break nor escape from. Third, I believe that this is what I was born to do. All of the days waiting on tables, pounding the pavement of the restaurant floor, taking the good with the bad, saying yes sir and no mam, I was working towards something, even though it took years to understand what that was. And now, dressed in black, folders in hand, smile on face, love in my heart, and passion in my soul, I am living my dream, and with each exercise and program helping others discover theirs.