A Sea of Potential
My family and I recently traveled to North Carolina for our annual mountain trip. This time we visited a small town right outside of Robbinsville, NC called Lake Santeetlah. This beautiful lake is located about 100 miles from Ashville and is called the “Wild West” of Graham County. That is a romantic way of saying this majestic and unspoiled lake is in the middle of nowhere. The Nantahala National Forest covers about 80% of its shoreline, meaning only 20% of the lake is developed. As such the view of the lake and neighboring Nantahala Forest and Smokey Mountains are breathtaking, serene and secluded.
Our fear of committing to one place as well as having the additional responsibly of upkeep on a home has made vacation rentals a great fit for us. We also like to be surrounded by friends and family, so generally during these trips we are busy spending time together, exploring local watering holes, getting out in nature and making memories. This trip was unique however. In addition to being quite rainy the whole week, thanks to a resurgence of Covid 19, some of our family had to quarantine. As such, at the beginning of the trip I felt a bit anxious about the pace that this trip would hold. Where we would usually have little down time, we would have a lot. I remember thinking it would take a couple of days to get used to it. And it did. However once I settled in, it was lovely. We spent multiple hours playing games, reading books, cooking and resting. A new family favorite, we played Sorry about a million times, and my mom and I played endless games of Gin Rummy. We spent our days in chucky sweaters and cozy socks. It was romantic, idealistic and inspiring. Waking up to the sun rising over the Smokey Mountains, sitting in a quiet sunlit room, drinking coffee and dreaming was exactly what I needed.
Leading up the trip, I was feeling restless and anxious. I was looking for something but didn’t know what. For the first time in years, my life was rather even keel, neutral, even boring at times. I tend to thrive under pressure and I love overcoming a challenge so I was in uncharted territory. To expand, over 5 years ago I opened a CrossFit gym on a whim and a prayer. I had no experience in the field of gym ownership but I loved the methodology. So, I found a few partners, combined a few gyms and we were off to the races. It was hard. It was stressful. It was emotionally draining. At the time I also had a 12 month old baby boy and another baby on the way. I was surrounded by pressure and challenges. Now 5 years later, my babies aren’t babies anymore. Moreover, the gym is thriving, we have the right team in place and my sole business partner is a blessing. As such my world is much different today than it was then. I found myself in a place where I was in need of creating something new, something challenging. Something that would allow me to get out of my comfort zone and begin to flex a new muscle.
CrossFit is my passion and has been for over a decade. I was an early adopter, an OG. I started back when CrossFit gyms were actually “boxes” and mostly run out of garages. I love CrossFit for so many important reasons. Likewise, I have always found peace and an ability to become fully immersed when writing. So at present, I am combining my love of CrossFit with my love of writing and I’m doing it in the form of a blog. My website is amateur, my content novice, but it’s here nonetheless. Given that there are nearly 32 million bloggers in the United States, I’m not breaking any ground here. I’m merely stepping into a very large pool, very late in the game. While most are now vlogging, I’m setting up a website, brainstorming content, and wondering, in general, what the hell I am doing. However, I made the commitment to myself to start something new, to push the envelope, to share my stories and learn how to be vulnerably open.
That last part is a large work in progress for me.
I’m calling my blog A Sea of Potential. One morning on this mountain vacation I was sitting in that aforementioned quite, little sunlit room, a room most likely built as an addition to the home. The room had cascading windows with panoramic views of the lake and sat perfectly to the East, letting sunlight drench every corner. I was sitting at a card table looking out over this beautiful place and was struck by its stillness. I felt an unbounded sense of potential. I thought: it’s a Sea of Potential. I’m a Sea of Potential. We are all really just a Sea of Potential. It’s cheesy and a little corny but whatever, it’s a start. It also jives beautifully with our gym. Our name is South Tampa CrossFit, not surprisingly because we are located in South Tampa. We call ourselves STC for short which is also the acronym for our slogan, Stay the Course. Our values are entrenched in that slogan. Staying the Course is essentially the pursuit of a difficult task, a reminder to keep going strongly until the end. It’s who we are, what we want, how we were built and what we hope to instill in our members. Our logo is a compass and our colors are that of a sunset on fire in the sky. It’s all very nautical. Hence, a Sea of Potential. An amateur blog meant to be a vessel for inspiring and entertaining health and fitness content.
A Sea of Potential.