Sunday, May 13, 2018

Revel

revel
verb, intransitive. To take intense satisfaction; to roister; to take part in a revel.
Also a noun, meaning a wild party or celebration.

Ruth plopped onto the porch swing and stretched the sleeve of her t-shirt out so she could mop her face with it. It always surprised her, that she could resist the urge to exercise as hard as she did, leaping upon any excuse to avoid it, but then, soon after she began, she would revel in the activity, and the longer she kept at it, the better it felt. As she had kept moving until just this moment: ten minutes, twenty, twenty-five and finally thirty minutes, she reflected that this hadn’t been so difficult while she was working. Somehow, the more restrictions there were on her time, the more discipline she was able to apply in using that time.

When she had a normal job, in town, she would rise early in order to arrive at least forty-five minutes before she was expected at the office. She would lock the car and take off down one of the city’s excellent walking/cycling trails, nodding greetings to others who were using the trail, thinking about the day to come as she walked. Before lunch, she would take a shorter walk on the sidewalks in the neighborhood of her office. Most days, she walked for about an hour, and gleefully watched her excess weight melt away. Now, she worked from home, had all the time in the world to organize as she saw fit, and nothing could be more challenging than setting aside time to exercise every day.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

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