Up until two weeks ago I was a regular gym junkie.

I hit the weights four times a week mixing cardio in on lifting days and off days. I felt strong, confident. There was a sense that no matter what happened in my day to day life that this was a controlled constant. Moving iron plates was my mantra and meditation. I prayed at the alter of the smith machine and bowed before my deadlifts. There was fluidity and intentions in my motions in the gym and it was the perfect yin to the yang of the absurdity of the rest of life, the rest of life where nothing is fluid, nothing is controlled. There is no set range of motion in the world but only a sporadic yanking that you hope takes you in the right direction.

Don't get me wrong, I like chaos and unpredictability but it has no place in the gym and the gym is all the better for it. Unintentional motions equal injury. There's a motto.

It's been two weeks since I loaded up my car with my belongings and fled my city, Philadelphia, for my historical pastures,Oklahoma.

Now I'm running and mixing in body weight exercises and I miss the gym so bad I could cry.

That constant is gone taken away by the chaos of life, yanked out from under me like a damned yoga mat.

I fear that soon I'll look like every other corn-fed overweight midwesterner and I'm desperately pushing back. I'm slowly turning my control over iron plates into a control of diet and god help me that I don't develop an eating disorder in the future.

Just kidding, but seriously.