Last Wednesday, we had someone new join us. Well, we had a bunch of newbies, but I’m trying to stay focused here. So we had this one person join us last Wednesday. She was new. And she’s relevant to this story. Let’s call her Mariana, because that’s her name. She was new to NP and she’s new to this city, and she’s new to the Masters program we are in together. By the way, that’s what I do here in Amsterdam in my free time, as one of my other unpaid side jobs – I go to school. Moving on.
So normally, I am hesitant to ask people what they thought of their first NP workout, because if they liked it, they’d tell me in their own time or they’ll #justshowup again, and if they didn’t like it, they might be embarrassed to admit that they don’t like fun, meeting a ton of cool people, or accomplishing hard things. Anyway, since Mariana and I spend almost all of our waking, non-NP hours together, we got to talking, as humans tend to do. Most of what she said was pretty typical: her legs were sore, it was worth the early morning wake up call, the people were great, and it made her feel good the rest of the day. Then she added: “You know, I really liked how you guys are all actually friends. I’ve gone to workout classes and other groups, and the people are really nice and all, but once you all go your separate ways, that’s it. But you guys are actually friends.”
Here’s the thing: we are actually friends. We run together, we eat together, we drink together, we do other weird and/or athletic things together, we celebrate birthdays and know where each other go on holiday and what each others’ race schedules look like. But while many of us have gotten close enough to learn each other’s stories and what we do in the hours outside of the workout (also known as the “dead zone”), most of our connections are scattered and varying in degree. When you see an encouraging high five or “fuck yeah” exchanged, those two people might not even know each other’s last name, or how to correctly pronounce each other’s first names. But that doesn’t matter; you don’t need to know someone’s backstory to hold them accountable for showing up and bringing the best version of themselves. We were all strangers once – not too long ago, actually. And it is little by little, piece by piece, we’ve gotten to really know each other. So yeah, we really are friends, but for every single one of us, it started with showing up and hugging a stranger.
Just keep showing up, tribe, keep being the light in someone else’s darkness.
SO MANY ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- POP-UP workout in Vondelpark this Friday. Tell your friends, tell your coworkers, stalk an early morning bootcamp and tell them too. The location is ideal, so is the workout, so are all of you. Google pin will be dropped on NP AMS page.
- Congratu-frickin-lations to Wan, Tommy, Sarah, and Stacy. The Berlin Marathon was lucky to have you four destroy it.
- Bring lights if you want to see or be seen while working out.
- Any ideas/connections/bribery tactics to get us on that NEMO roof, let us know.
Just love.
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