The Big Leap

My sleep broke sometime in the morning and I tried closing my eyes to get back to sleep. After a while of trying I wasn’t still able to sleep. So I stretched out and grabbed my mobile, and without looking at the time started playing candy crush thinking it will put me to sleep. I was wishing if I had few more lives or crossed a level, as then I could have played until I fell asleep but no luck.

When I finally noticed, it was 4.40 AM and despite trying for another 20 minutes I wasn’t able to go back to sleep. I got up and went out to the adjoining room to realise that it was dawn already, pristine sun rays bringing life to everything they touched.

As I looked out at the avenue, from my window I decided to go for a run. “Yes A Run”.

I wouldn’t call myself a lazy person, because I am not one. However would have to admit that when it comes to any physical workout I have never been the most enthusiastic person around. For the past few days I have been trying running, and every time I did reasonably for a small distance before giving up.

Today I wanted to make sure that I stick to a discipline and not do things on and off as I had been doing so far.

I have been physically active but it does puts me to a little shame that I am the odd one out at my home. My father even in his late forties used to play football with boys half his age. My sister has been a gymnast in forming and while she would easily spin on tree branches, I could hardly hang in for a couple of minutes. My brother is a fitness freak and can’t live without a gym to work out even during his vacation

But it is not the case that I have never done anything at all. As a kid I practiced yoga, karate and have been doing gym and yoga in the past. But what I perhaps always lacked was discipline and consistency.

Once in school when my team was lagging at third position and I was the last person in the relay team of four, I ran so fast that we got gold!!

Another time during college, I happened to reach Delhi train station just 2-3 minutes before departure.  To add to my misery my train was on platform number 13 which was farthest from where I was standing. I had a big bag and a back pack with laptop; I grabbed both and ran like I had not run in years. I climbed the stairs, got down and started running towards my compartment, while the train had already started slowly. I am thankful to those passengers who held my big bag through the door closest to me as without their help I wouldn’t have got in. It took me five minutes to catch my breath at the end of that mad run with 20kg luggage. 

This episode made me believe that may be when it would matter I will give my best and do the undoable.

However today I wanted to do something I have been planning for so long. I quietly pulled my track suit from cupboard, wore my shoes, as it was cold outside I wanted a jacket but didn’t want to risk waking up my husband with screeching noise of drawers or make any possible noise to wake him up (to wake someone from sleep is like crime). I saw his Liverpool jacket lying handy so I grabbed it and wore it half heartedly, sipped some water and left home quietly with my set of keys.

Unlike in the evening I saw no one running outside. It was around 5.30 in the morning, as I stretched and started running. Having escaped the inertia, I felt a sense of accomplishment. As I reached closer to the distance I had run in the past, I again felt tired and slowed down. But unlike before, I picked up my spirits to stretch another 100 meters. Despite moving above my previous distance I am still ashamed to hardly to make it a mile.

Walking back towards home, I gathered all my energy and sprinted for 100 meters. When I stopped I could see my home across the boundary and wished I could jump across and did not have to walk around to reach there.

As I entered, I wondered if my husband would be awake. In that case by now he would have already realized that I have been missing and I would surprise him. But I opened the door only to find him still deep asleep. 

As I changed I hoped he would somehow find out about my great deed and applaud me. So for him to find out, I left some hints like leaving his Liverpool jacket in the drawing room and keeping  my shoes in the top most rack (which I normally insist to be kept vacant).

When my husband woke up, he was already in a hurry to get ready for his office. I hoped he would notice the puzzle I had created for him to solve. But I was not amazed that he did not. Because perhaps it is only me, who has this super observation to interpret from the position of his shoes, socks or clothes had he done something similar.

I was happy, but wanted someone to appreciate my efforts. So I ended up in writing this note just to tell my husband, how I went up against all odds and took a big leap today. 

But then I realized that when I managed to catch the train, won the relay race, left my job to get an MBA, it was not for somebody to appreciate me, or even take a note of what I did.

Because may be some times what matters is what you do for yourself and not to showcase to anyone or prove any point. And this was one amongst them where I came over my apprehension and self imposed constraints.

I very strongly believe that once you take a big leap towards something for yourself you would always land doing way better than you would have expected.