I always seem to start these posts by describing one of several things: where I am, what I am doing, or what is going on with my body. Am I that much of a narcissist? Perhaps I am; however, since I write because I fear that one day, all of this...stuff will be a memory to which I no longer have access, it's important to record all the minutiae. Side note: I have a weird predilection for loving the semicolon-conjunctive adverb-comma technique to join together multiple independent clauses. I have actually developed an active dislike for moments wherein people begin their sentences with "however". It has gotten so intense, in fact, that I have begun speaking punctuation aloud with my students in order to get them in the habit of conjunctive adverb-ing more fluidly. It warms both the cockles and the subcockles of my heart when I hear them say, "I thought we had a quiz today, semicolon-however-comma, we do not."
Nerd.
THAT BEING SAID....
I am sitting here in front of my computer (obviously), and my body is beginning to grumble about the soreness that looms ahead. I did unspeakable things to it at the gym last night... all manner of atrocities--squats, thrusts, curls, etc--and let's face it, the needle on my age-o-meter is moving in only one direction. My relationships with both exercise and my body have changed and changed and changed over the years, as one would expect. Anyone who knows me knows that I started running in seventh grade because it was something my father had done as a teenager, and I LONGED to be more like him, or at least to have more things discussion-worthy and in common. I broke the school record in the 1600 meters (which was broken by someone else a year later. Boo.), and I was hooked. I ran in junior high (successfully) and in high school (less so). I stopped in college and essentially ignored my body.
It was not happy.
When I got back into running towards the end of my senior year, I became unhealthily obsessed (is there even a healthy way to obsess?) and ran every single day...even after I moved to California for grad school. Oh! The stories! Perhaps some other time, I'll write about THAT journey and its scary nuances, but this is not that. When I injured myself (because, of course, I did), I relegated myself to machines at the gym other than the treadmill. It was there that I developed a totally different kind of neurosis.
Now...
I often like to semi-joke, "I am never the prettiest girl in the room, but I often get to be the smartest, and that's way more important," and though it was usually sincere, I sometimes used it as a suit of armor. What my time at the gym revealed to me was that many people will fit into others' ideas of "attractive", and this knowledge made it terrifying to go there. Suddenly, I was hyperaware of the redness of my face when I was locomotive-huffing on the treadmill or the sweaty tendrils of hair plastered unflatteringly to my face after I wiped my dripping-not-glistening face (and who created the ridiculous idea that "glistening" is a euphemism for "sweating like a mafia informant"?) I could not distract myself from the obvious shaking in my limbs when I was more ambitious when putting the weights on the bar. Ugh. Suddenly, the gym became yet another place where I needed to fix my posture, hold in my stomach, and poke out my chest...where I needed to "GET THOSE CHEEKBONES HAPPENIN'!" Awful.
Mercifully, I have recently discovered that being *of a certain age* has afforded me the freedom to no longer be anyone's desired demographic. I waltz past the "young-uns" and "gym bros" and even the "second-chancer dads getting in shape for their next wives" pert-near invisibly. Seriously. Often, they do not even see me until I *ahem* softly and ask to use a machine (usually the one they are sitting on while text-facebook-intagramming). It's kind of nice, actually. I can blush and sweat and puff and struggle without alerting the testosterone around me! I do not even register on the radar of the men nearby. To a younger me, this sounds like a tragedy. To current me, it is perfect. Insecurity is not the ideal spotting partner.
A new (potential) friend suggested to me that "everyone is someobody's desired target," and the gym might soon become terrifying once again.
For now, I'm off to be invisible. The gym closes at 7:00 today.
