I am a Breathing Time Machine

I'm in the gym in East Kilbride. My journey from a Fire Brigade Station Officer in south London to a dedicated gym-goer near Glasgow is a story in itself; one of retirement, relocation and a spiralled journey into darkness. Let's see how we get on with this return to blogging, or 'journaling' as it's more commonly referred to in the therapy sphere, and maybe we'll shine a light into that darkness. Maybe.

So, anyway, I'm in the gym in East Kilbride; I'm kitted out in the type of clobber you might expect a dedicated gym-goer to be clad in. Should I admit to wearing a fucking baseball cap indoors...in a temperature-controlled gym? I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of honesty yet. Maybe we'll get there. Maybe.

I've just completed the third set of five squats with an Olympic bar totalling 100kg. My mind, very unusually, is quiet. The normal chaos that whirls around my brain is absent. This is one of the reasons I've become a swollen, protein shake chugging gym-goer rather than a skeletal ultra-marathon runner; the gym and hard, explosive, physical exercise quietens the chaos in my head in a way that running never did. An 18-month engagement with sciatica that left me broken and hobbling encouraged a departure from the sport of putting one foot in front of the other quickly, right enough. But I was never any good at it anyway. But weight training? I can dig that. It's generally done indoors, in the warm, with barely clad women training alongside you. So I ask, what's not to like?

Then the oh so familiar smell reaches my nostrils. The one you get following a fire; the one that I smelled every day at work for over 27 years. The one that told so many stories of devastation, destruction, pain and loss. On this occasion, the odour emanates from a recently extinguished bin fire outside. But a quiet, imaginatively fertile mind, and a familiar, very evocative smell are like welcoming hosts to an event of four years previous and some four hundred miles away. A flashback, some people call this event.

I'm not in a gym in East Kilbride clad in gym gear and maybe (maybe) a baseball cap. I'm in a tower block in west London clad in the orange of an Urban Search and Rescue operative and Drager full-face respirator. The smell of fire is in my nostrils despite the facial protection. My colleague and I are performing a task that we just need to get done. It's not a pleasant task. And I suppose this is the bit where blogging (journaling) about this type of thing becomes difficult. I was never asked to sign a contract confirming the experiences of individuals in death remain between myself and that person (and possibly the coroner) but I metaphorically signed one nonetheless. So excuse my reticence to detail. But my colleague is about to commit himself to a strategy I believe is unnecessary: if we take a little bit longer, and expose ourselves to this unpleasantness for a few minutes more, we can get the task done gently and with dignity. So through the muffled confines of a Drager facemask, in a building that's creaking and groaning loudly as if remaining upright is a huge effort, I shout 'NO!' very loudly.

But, of course, I'm not in a tower block in west London. I'm in the gym in East Kilbride, and the experience of a middle-aged gym-goer, lost in himself, staring into the middle distance, then shouting 'NO!' in the echo reverberating walls of a gym, is a disconcerting event for other gym-goers.

I return to myself. I realise what has happened. Others are looking at me with concern or amusement. I'm breathing heavily and shaking slightly but mostly I'm fucking embarrassed. I tell myself that this will all be forgotten in a few minutes and go back to the Olympic bar. But the side glances and sniggers tell me otherwise. This will be the chat around the water cooler; the mad bloke in the gym; the Cockney guy that talks to himself.

I make a mental note to record this event on my weekly 'Invasive Thoughts Diary' that I have to send to my therapist in advance of our weekly meeting by Zoom. The meetings where I've had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder explained to me. The meetings where the condition all makes so much sense but requires a multitude of prescription medications to manage it.

If I wear a different coloured baseball cap (maybe) and some different clobber at my next gym visit, maybe I won't be recognised as 'the mad bloke down the gym.'

Maybe.