sometimes, even now, after all this, the impulse to push still flickers, a ghost of old habits. that flicker, it used to be a roar. now it’s just a whisper, a momentary tension in the jawline i catch before it sets. the body remembers, always, the difference between effort and strain. and the rhythm, the one that pulls through the core, it feels like the current in the creek i plunge into , steady, unyielding, but never forcing.