A water fountain called me out

I was out walking with my son Nico the other day. He’s one, so I do the walking and he supervises from the stroller.

There’s a water fountain near our place. We stopped in front of it and he just watched.

Water going up, water coming down. A kid completely locked in on it.

You know how life gets. The phone, the clients, the next thing. Half the time I’m somewhere else in my head and I know it.

Not this time.

For a minute I was just there, watching him watch the water.

And then a thought landed out of nowhere.

If my pain was still here, would I even be in this moment? Or would it be taking something from me, right there next to him?

Because I remember what those years were actually like. Pain doesn’t just take your deadlift. It runs in the background of everything.

You’re at dinner, but part of you is monitoring your back. You’re on the floor with your kid, but you’re already negotiating with what it’ll cost you to get up.

Pain doesn’t just steal the lift. It taxes every moment it touches.

I talk about getting back under the bar all the time, because that’s the goal the people I work with care about.

But standing at that fountain, I realized the bar was never the whole prize.

The prize is being all the way in your life again.

Hope you’re moving well and brewing better. ☕

Gabe