WAS IT WORTH?

This past month has been very hard and very challenging, under many circumstances, and I will briefly try and explain what happened under the surface. Suddenly I had to face many different problems involving every single aspect of my life: work, climbing, relationship, friendships. Wherever I looked, I could not find shelter from problems.

At the beginning of august, I started an individual class with one Turkish businessman, scheduled to be every day from 4 to 6 pm. Sometimes I had other lessons before that, sometimes I just had two or three hours to kill while waiting for him. No problem I thought, I can handle this, even if the gym was closing at 9 pm instead of 11 pm, I could still get there at 6 30, warm up, and pack in a decent session. The classes started well, but many many jokes about my teaching ability from the man, day after day, started to make me feel a bit nervous, so one day I took my courage and spoke with the school's director, telling him that probably the man was going to ask him to change me for someone else, and even if this would have given me more time to train, of course it wasn't good news on the working front.
One day, the man told me: "Lorenzo, I need to tell you something." That's it, I thought, evening sessions at the crag here I come! "I would like to spend more time with you." he added.
Dammit, this was a shocker. Briefly, he asked me to substitue the 2 to 4 pm teacher, and to have a monster 4 hours individual class every day. I spoke again with the director, because I was basically kicking out my collegue, but it wasn't my request, and I felt at ease with it. So, in a split second I found myself with 8 full hours of teaching every day, and the afternoon class just simply terrified me. I was to take the major role in this man's entire course, doing on my own more than half of his teaching. The sunday night before our first new class I was just terrified: how can I go on for four hours without being boring or useless? Well, I thought I should prepare lots of material, readings, excercises, conversation subjects and so on. Well, I made it. It's been very tough, because every day I would get home at 6 30 pm completely smashed and, obviously almost without any voice left. Then I would gulp something and try to wake me up from a semi coma and crank a fingerboard session.
Then, my relationship. We've been through a big big turmoil recently, and it took all our energies to keep our eyes on the prize and go on without fear. I can't say more here.
Training wise, I think I've already said everything. 2 hours sessions on the fingerboard were hard and even a bit boring, but I just couldn't do without. I had been lucky enough to share a couple of sessions with friends, and that is obviously a very good thing, especially when you are told: "Well Lore if you crank like this at mid august, what will you do after training seriously?"
Then finally the gym reopened and I started throwing iron plates everywhere. I am very happy. I didn't lose any power in two weeks, and my routines has already improved in just two sessions of the last week.
On the friendships side, it's been a very lonely month. To be honest, I didn't talk to anyone apart from my students. Florence was deserted, everyone was away climbing and my girlfriend wasn't at home.
So, was it worth it?
Yes, for sure.
This month taught me alot. It taught me that I can do serious work, and that I am far more dedicated and responsible than I thought. Not for one moment did I think "No, I don't want to take the whole four hours", and for sure I didn't just do it for the money (a nice down jacket is on the way anyway...). It's just been something that I felt I had to do. But it also taught me that I need to know that there's more in my life than just work, because this makes me happy. When I know that I have some time to do everything, to train, to rest, to make love, to cook, everything is easier and tastes nicely.
Now I am very happy to think that I am going to work a bit less, probably six hours, which is absolutely perfect because I can earn good money and still have alot of time. I feel good times ahead. I feel free and even a bit powerful.
I feel my girlfriend close again and we make love like two teenagers.
Tomorrow I will go to Amiata top with the van for a couple of days (I took monday off...) and I am sure I will enjoy fresh air again.
I realize now that I couldn't have written this before. I needed to close the circle, I needed to be able to draw a line to look back and try to understand what this month meant. I'm happy of what I found out.
Thanks for finding the time to read this.