‘Should I challenge myself, push myself further when I don’t know where that road will take me?’ 

In those brief, glorious summer months when lockdown was lifted, I returned to my gym classes. 

I’d missed them more than I thought I would; as a writer, I spend most of my time alone and while I enjoy my own company, the other members were often the only people I’d speak to someone outside my family. 

During one of the last classes I took before ‘Lockdown: The Sequel’ began, I noticed that the kettlebells I was using suddenly felt too light. It was strange, I thought, as they had been the perfect weight for me the week before, heavy enough to be challenging but not enough to cause an injury. 

It seemed as if this new-found strength had literally happened overnight but the truth was it was a culmination of weeks, if not months, of hard work, building up my stamina until I instinctively knew that it was time for me to move on. 

Thinking about it afterwards, it seemed like the perfect analogy for my own recovery. The easing of…