And so the conversation turned

Bloody Christmas opening hours at the gym. Nine o'clock, nine o'clock? How dare these people have lives? Don't they know I'm not sleeping well and looking for something to do at 7 each morning.
Although speaking as someone who has worked the Christmas rush (in my distant youth I must admit) I do have every sympathy. Funny how we can build a society in which someone must always be working, someone is always at our beck and call, to clean up our problems and make our lives easier, wet nurses to us all.
But I digress (and why shouldn't I? Haven't I earned that right? Or have I earnt that right?) Anyway Christmas is nearly through and even GMTV have started wishing their viewers a Happy New Year instead. Gosh. It's almost gone. We're nearly back to normal or whatever version of reality constitues normality in your eyes.
A few weeks back I started getting the same symptons that put me in hospital in 2005. For a while it was agony. Imagine not being able to sleep because every time you rest your head you start to choke. And then consider that the repeat visits of heart failure seem to be the ones that kill. How organised was I with the list of phone numbers I took into hospital? How scared did the very junior doctor look as she told me that it did indeed sound like the first stages of heart failure? She did have a startled bunny countenence to savour. But anyway the contradiction was that the tests were clear but the symptoms were not. My own doctor knew the problem and sorted it fairly quickly once I got to see him. And the situation has returned to normal (it appears it was merely a lung infection but I'm still not sleeping although the choking has gone, I guess it's a mental thing now). The funny thing was that for the second time in my life I was preparing myself to die. The first time I knew it was a distinct possibility. But the second time was worse. Imagine dedicating a year of your life to something and it still turns out shit. Try it. Go on. See what I mean. The funny thing was that when I came out of hospital I went back to my flat, got my gym "kit" and went to find an exercise bike. At four a.m. I thought I was going to die. At six a.m. I had heart failure. At eight a.m. I was on the bike. Perhaps I knew all along it wasn't as serious as the junior doctor thought. Perhaps. But perhaps I am so determined to put right the mistakes of my past that I am prepared to push myself to the limits. Perhaps I want to overcome the stupid, pathetic laziness that engulfed me and consequently if I do push myself too hard and unravel it all then at least I will be able to say that I tried. At least I will be able to say I did something rather than nothing, rather than wait and see.
The gym opens in twenty minutes. I'm off to do some stretching before the stroll along the river.
Better to die of something rather than nothing.
Useful Simpsons quote: "They say she died of a burst ventricle but I know she died of broken heart."