What If It’s Just Raining?

Lately I feel like I have been reflecting on everything.

Ideas and little snippets keep showing up when I’m dreaming, when I wake up in the middle of the night, or when my brain apparently decides 3 a.m. is the perfect time to start a philosophical discussion.

Last night. Or I guess technically this morning, rain was at the forefront. Not sure if it’s because every fucking animal in this house had to be awake from midnight until 3:30. That was fun.

And for whatever reason, the phrase – can you see through the rain? – was there in my head. Rolling around. Waiting for me to latch on.

I have no idea where it came from. But there it was. Over and over.

And of course my first thought was probably something about patience.

Maybe I’m being reminded to slow down.

Maybe I’m supposed to trust the process.

Maybe there’s some lesson buried in there that I’m supposed to figure out.

And then I thought, but what if I’m trying too hard to see through it?

We do that a lot.

We want to know what everything means while we’re still standing right in the middle of it.

Why is this happening?

Where is this going?

Am I doing the right thing?

When am I going to see progress?

When is this going to feel easier?

Is this ever going to feel fucking easier?

What am I supposed to learn from this?

We want clarity before clarity is actually available.

We just want to know.

Or maybe what we really want is reassurance.

Something that tells us we are doing what we should be doing.

That we’re headed in the right direction. That this thing we are doing is eventually going to work.

That all of this effort isn’t for nothing.

And when we don’t get that reassurance, we start looking harder.

We analyze. We question. We change things.

We look for some kind of sign.

But what if there isn’t one yet?

What if you aren’t supposed to be able to see all the way through it?

And what if every period of uncertainty doesn’t mean something has gone wrong?

What if it’s just raining?

That thought is important.

Because we are really fucking quick to turn temporary conditions into conclusions.

This feels hard, so maybe I can’t do it.

The scale hasn’t moved, so this isn’t working.

I don’t feel motivated, so maybe this isn’t for me.

I’m uncomfortable, so maybe I made the wrong decision.

I don’t know what comes next, so maybe I shouldn’t keep going.

We take the weather and turn it into the forecast for the rest of our lives. We might not want to admit that. But, it’s true for a lot of us.

But rain is just rain.

It changes what you can see right now.

Sure, it can slow you down.

Yes, it can make the road a little harder to navigate.

It might even make you question whether you want to keep driving.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the road.

And maybe that is where the patience piece comes in.

Not patience like sitting around waiting for your life to happen.

Patience like being willing to keep living it without demanding that everything make sense immediately.

We are definitely an impatient bunch.

But maybe patience isn’t waiting for the rain to stop.

Maybe it’s learning that you can be perfectly fucking okay while it’s still raining.

That you don’t have to rush through every uncomfortable part.

You don’t have to make the uncertainty go away.

You don’t have to figure out the lesson while you’re still living it.

You can just be in it.

Patience like not ripping apart the plan because you had a shitty week.

Not deciding nothing is working because progress got quiet.

Not assuming discomfort means stop.

Not demanding proof every five minutes that you are headed somewhere worthwhile.

Because sometimes you can’t see through the rain.

Sometimes your view is absolute shit.

You can’t see very far ahead and you definitely can’t see how the whole thing is going to turn out.

But that doesn’t mean you’re lost.

It doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong direction.

And it doesn’t mean you need to stop and completely change course every time things get blurry. Because they will get blurry.

Maybe you just need to see far enough to make the next decision.

The next meal. That next workout. The next conversation. The next boundary.

The next uncomfortable thing you know you need to do.

Maybe that’s enough.

We spend so much time trying to figure out the entire road before we are willing to take another step.

And I’m starting to wonder how much we miss because of that.

How many times have we abandoned something that was working because it wasn’t giving us enough reassurance?

How many times have we changed direction because we couldn’t see the outcome yet?

How often do we mistake not knowing yet for something is wrong?

Maybe some things are only clear after you’ve walked through them.

Maybe hindsight is supposed to come later. It is 20/20 after all.

Maybe you don’t have to understand every season while you’re living it.

Maybe you don’t need to see through the rain.

Maybe you just need to stop treating the rain like proof you’re on the wrong road.

Maybe you can just be in it.

Rain and all.

Because sometimes?

It’s just raining.

And maybe the question isn’t really…

Can you see through the rain?

Maybe it’s…

Can you be okay when you can’t?

Who Are You Afraid of Losing?

Have you ever noticed how, when we talk about becoming a new version of ourselves, we act like the old version was simply a problem to solve?

But she wasn’t. She was your person for a long time.

She got you through things. She learned how to survive and how to belong. She learned how to protect herself, how to soothe herself, and how to make life feel manageable. Those things are important.

Those things served a purpose.

Some of her patterns may no longer serve you, but they usually existed for a reason.

For me, the pivotal point came when I got sick of my own shit.

Sounds dramatic. But it’s really not. It’s just the truth. It was 2018.

I liked to drink. I liked to eat whatever I wanted. I liked doing what felt good in the moment without thinking too hard about what it was doing to me long term.

That version of me wasn’t terrible. She was actually pretty fun. She was damn sarcastic. She was a smart ass. She cared deeply about the things that mattered to her.

But I knew I couldn’t keep living that way forever.

At some point, wanting to change became stronger than wanting to stay comfortable.

I quit drinking. I cleaned shit up. I lost around 45 pounds, but I lost more than weight along the way.

I lost routines, habits, coping mechanisms, excuses, and a version of myself I had known for a very long time.

And even though I wanted the change, leaving her behind was still uncomfortable.

Because she was familiar. Familiar is known.  And there is real fear in letting go of what you know, even when you know it isn’t where you want to stay.

That push and pull is real.

I knew her rules. I knew how she responded. I knew how she had fun, how she avoided discomfort, and how she kept life moving without asking too many hard questions.

Even when she kept me stuck, she felt safe because I knew her.

That is the part people skip when they talk about change.

I see this all the time with my clients.

They want to change. They want to feel better, become stronger, improve their health, and stop repeating the same patterns.

But they are also afraid of what they might lose along the way.

Who will they be if food is no longer how they comfort themselves?

How will they socialize if drinking isn’t always part of it?

What happens when they start saying no, setting boundaries, or making choices the people around them don’t understand?

They want the new life, but parts of the old life still feel like home.

That doesn’t mean they don’t want it badly enough.

It means change is more complicated than simply deciding to do better.

Sometimes changing feels like betrayal.

You want the new life, but you also have to grieve the life you knew. You lose habits, identities, relationships, excuses, and ways of coping.

Even positive change creates loss.

Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that the old me had taken me as far as she could.

The new me was still me. I was still sarcastic. Still a smart ass. Still passionate. Still someone who cared deeply and felt things intensely.

I hadn’t lost my personality at all.

I had stopped letting the parts of me that wanted immediate comfort make every decision.

My health improved. My energy improved. My confidence improved.

My life got bigger, not smaller.

I didn’t have to hate the old me in order to become someone new.

I could appreciate her. I could understand her. I could even miss parts of her.

But I didn’t need to go back and become her again.

Maybe reconciliation looks like saying, I understand why you became this way. I appreciate what you carried.

And I don’t need you to run my life anymore.

She got me here.

She just wasn’t the person who could take me where I wanted to go next.

Most people exercise for now. They want to lose weight now. Fit into the jeans now. Look better in pictures now. Or survive swimsuit season.

Which swimsuit season? It’s July. In Australia it’s December. Somewhere, it’s always swimsuit season. That’s marketing, not reality.

There’s nothing wrong with those goals. They’re just micro to me.

I do it now for then. I’m 62.

I still lift heavy. I still teach cycling. I still chase goals that some people think belong to younger women. I’m not trying to prove I haven’t gotten older. I definitely have.

The point is, I’m investing in the years I haven’t lived yet. I’m not trying to outrun aging. I’m preparing for it.

I strength train now because I want to carry my own groceries when I’m 80.

I ride my bike now because I want my heart to keep showing up for me decades from now.

I eat protein now because muscle is my retirement plan.

I prioritize sleep because I want my brain to work just as well in twenty years as it does today.

I move my body because I plan to keep participating in my life.

Every workout is a deposit. Every balanced meal is a deposit. Same with every walk. Same with every good night of sleep. Same with every time I keep showing up instead of throwing in the towel.

They are all deposits into the life I’m building.

We spend decades planning for retirement. We save money. We invest. We think about where we will live. But how many people spend the same amount of time investing in the body they will actually live in?

Your body is your retirement account. You can’t withdraw strength you never invested. One day you will wake up with whatever you have built.

Strength or fragility. Confidence or hesitation. Energy or exhaustion. Freedom or dependence. It’s not something to take lightly. The choices you make today don’t disappear tomorrow.

The things we do, do things to us. Today’s habits and behaviors become tomorrow’s life.

That’s why I don’t think about workouts as something to check off a list. I think about them as votes. Votes for the person I want to be in ten, twenty or thirty years.

What kind of 80 year old am I building?

That’s the question that matters.

It’s not what the scale says today or whether my abs are visible. It’s not whether I skipped dessert.

It’s what kind of life am I making possible? Healthy aging is not luck. It’s built years before you need it.

I get asked about why I still lift. Why I still ride and why I still pay attention to what I eat. Not only is my health and my future important to me, but so is my history.

My dad was gone at 60.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. None of us do.

But I do know I want to stack the deck in my favor.

I want options. I want to travel if I decide to travel. I want to hike if I decide to hike. I want to be able to get down on the floor and then get back up without having to think about it. I want to keep learning new things. I want to keep saying yes to adventures. I want to keep living independently for as long as I possibly can. I don’t want longevity without capability. I want both.

I’m not doing this because I’m afraid of getting older. I’m doing it because I plan on getting older. And I want those years to be full of life. Not just years that are added to my life, but life that is added to my years.

So no, I don’t do it for now. I do it now for then.

Future me is counting on the choices I make today.

Tomorrow’s life is built by today’s deposits. Today’s habits become tomorrow’s life.

Today, I get another chance to make one.