#60M2IM: I Joined a Gym Today
Baby step #1. Iron Man, here I come.
I signed up at a gym today.
I’m not sure why this was hard for me. It’s not like I haven’t belonged to gyms before. I belonged to this gym until February.
For some reason, it was tough to go in today.
Maybe it was tough because the reason I quit in February is that I hadn’t been since I weighed 368 pounds. I know how to go to the gym when nothing much is expected of me. Just the bare fact that I was there was enough.
Whatever. I was scared and I’m not going to lie here. Not here. I created a situation where I went into the gym with my husband sitting in the car waiting for me.
I created a situation where I could join the gym today, but I couldn’t actually use the gym today.
Some of it was logistic. My car is in the shop so between going to the bank and stopping at the drug store to pick up his mother’s prescription, my husband drove me to the gym.
(Shhh…I already know I could have gone earlier. Or later. I know.)
Some of it was most definitely psychological. I’ve lost a lot of weight in a short period of time — 120 pounds in 15 months. There’s some awesome there. I don’t need a CPAP to breathe and sleep at the same time. I’m not in crippling pain every time I’m on my feet for more than ten minutes.
But, also? It’s weird. I feel a very strange kind of mind/body disconnect.
For the first time in my life, I don’t have a real idea of what I’m capable of. My body takes up an amount of space that feels a little bit like I’m wearing someone else’s skin. Skin that’s too loose and too small at the same time.
So, I did what I did. I left my husband in the car and went into the gym — it’s on the ground floor of the hospital where I had most of my stomach removed last July. I signed up and I bought six sessions with a personal trainer.
Tomorrow I will actually use the gym. I might have just waited to actually sign up until tomorrow, too. Saved poor Kevin the wait in the car. But I told a friend that I was going to do it and it seemed important not to have to tell him I skipped it.
My new gym has a beautiful salt water swimming pool. That’s why I picked this one, even though it’s right on the edge of what I can afford. Sometimes it’s over that edge. I’ve had to quit more than once when things were tight.
Swimming is my thing. Once upon a very long time ago, when I was an athlete, I was a swimmer. I feel at home in the water. It’s my laughing place.
I’m just going to go ahead and make this public. Tomorrow I’m dropping Ruby off at school and I’m going to swim. My gym bag is already in the car.
I’ll check in with you, Accountability Partner. Thanks for helping me do the scary stuff.
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Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She lives in Reno with her husband, three superstar kids, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes, is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation, and is the original Ninja Writer.
