Stef Kay

I once read that saltwater is medicine: ocean, sweat, and tears. That rang true the moment I read it, and I took that advice to heart recently.

Instead of going on the group excursion for work, I chose to stay back and combine sweat beside the ocean. I squatted, pushed, and pulled while I listened to the waves and watched the surfers ride them in.

I found a way to move while staying in the same place. And because of that, I noticed things I surely would have missed otherwise. A butterfly landing on a flower I couldn’t name. The way the palm shadows shifted across the grass. How the pattern of the tree bark looked like polka dots. Small, ordinary things made extraordinary by the fact that I almost wasn’t there to see them.

I felt so much joy that at the end of my brutal bodyweight workout, I was teary-eyed. Movement is cathartic to me, and crying at the end is nothing new. But today felt especially sweet as all three elixirs combined into one moment. One I could have missed. One I nearly did miss, because I almost “should-ed” myself into doing something I didn’t want to do, again.

Life is too sweet to should it away.