PERSPECTIVE

I’m no gym rat, but I do like to start each day with a walk, preferably outside, weather permitting. Last winter, I used to drive to the Galleria mall when it was too cold to walk outside.

Six months ago, I moved to a location directly across the street from the mall and thought I was in Heaven. Walk out my door, cross the street and Bingo, I was inside the mall. If the weather was nice, I’d walk outside. If it was rainy, I walked the 7 levels of the mall garage and thought I was a genius.

Then COVID happened and they closed the mall. They also decided to close the parking garage to foot traffic while the mall was closed.

No problem. My new building has a gym. It’s very pretty. You can see it on the left. Ambient lighting and state of the art equipment in that gym, which is mostly lost on me.

Then COVID restrictions were imposed in my building and they closed the gym and common areas. Still didn’t stop me. I moved to the stairwell, a necessary passageway. Still got my morning exercise in. That’s the very non scenic stairwell on the right.

The obstacles didn’t stop me. I found a way because it was my priority to keep going.

This morning, while back in the gym, I noticed that 1 of the 2 elliptical machines had been removed. Since this tends to be the most popular item in the gym, I instantly started wondering if they had plans to replace it, once it had been repaired, and then felt perturbed, thinking they’d use this as a an opportunity to cut services.

When neighbor arrived for his workout, I pointed out the missing elliptical that he typically used. He told me the reason it was removed was for residents’ safety, so that we can workout more distantly from one another. Oh. It was for my benefit, not to my detriment, as I had assumed.

All the same facts, just different conclusions. It’s all a matter of perspective. Same input, but different results. The stuff of human misunderstandings.

I think I’ve grown in this regard, but obviously still need work.

Let’s all take it easy on each other, because it still sucks to be in 2020 for a lot of folks.