Gym Class: I'm not as young as I used to be.

I swore I would never join a gym, and a certainly didn’t think I would ever tell anyone I did. But the year has changed and so have the times. I’m getting older and my body is changing, so I took the plunge and signed up. I need to be clear though. This was not a New Years resolution, this has been on my mind for months and I joined at the end of December. There was an evolution to my decision, but I shall not bore anyone with the details except to acknowledge that I started this journey as much for my mental health as I did for my physical health. And it’s working. I actually feel better, and I give you my word: this is not a rationalization I am talking myself into. I really do believe that the workout is a great stress release. 

This morning, with earbuds blasting a random selection on my iPod because I have not yet succumbed to the workout playlist, I I headed upstairs to my usual workout area. It is on the second floor along the open loft-like part of the gym, and you can see just about everyone and everything going on downstairs. As I was sweating out my worries on the treadmill, I looked down and around the gym to pass the time. There are likely to be some great writing pieces born in the gym, I thought. Sure enough, here I am.

I work out at about six in the morning before I go to work, and I never thought I would be someone who would enjoy a morning workout. But boy, I do! It’s sometimes hard to get going, but once I get to the gym and get moving, it is well worth it. The gym has a mellow buzz in the morning, and there is not a lot of conversation. We all seem to have the same purpose. Get a workout, get a shower, and get to work. It never feels overcrowded or uncomfortably close. When you are on a piece of equipment, there is always at least one empty machine between you and the next person. And when you shower, get dressed, and walk out into the world at 7:45 with a workout already behind you, you feel like you can conquer the world. Let us not discount the added bonus when you are exhausted at the end of the workday, and you don’t have to feel guilty about not working out, because you already did!

I am not the typical gym goer by any means. I don’t have a body that screams “I work out!” Though perhaps several months down the line it might say “See, I’m trying!” I don’t have any of those cute workout coordinates like the young hardbodies I see at the gym. I don’t wear any make up when I go either, and my hair is last night’s rat’s nest tied up in a bun. Matching headband? No way, I have a piece of stretch fabric cut into a headband, and I use it to keep the frizz at bay as I begin to steam and sweat during my workout (Ever seen my hair? You know what I mean). As my husband and I recently concluded, we have about hit middle-age. I see a few seniors at the gym trying to keep fit or rehabbing an injury. There are quite a few twenty and thirty-something coeds (Wow, that just proved I’m middle-aged), usually adorned in said coordinates and watching each other as they move about the gym. Many of them work out in pairs, and I wonder if I would like working out with a buddy. I really like to zone out to my own music, because 90 percent of what they play at the gym sucks, but it might be fun to train with a friend too. But there I am, right in the middle. Forty-something me, just trying to get my head straight and work off a few middle-age pounds while I’m at it.

But here are some (observations) promises from this forty-something gym member:

1. I will always use those handy wipes provided in the convenient dispensers throughout the gym, to wipe my nasty sweat off the equipment when I’m finished.
2. I will never wear second-skin yoga pants/spandex workout pants that show off a thong in a darker color underneath.
3. I will never (again) drink a 7 dollar protein smoothie from the Smoothie Bar when there is a Tropical Smoothie right around the corner where the smoothies actually taste good, and cost several dollars less.
4. I will never use all the equipment the gym has to offer. I’m not interested in free weight lifting, boxing, or that machine that spans 8 feet wide with cable and has guys four times my size pressing weights down in a strained flying motion. Excuse my overly technical jargon if you’re not a gym-goer.
5. I will never post on Facebook or any other social media that “I’m heading out to the gym,” or “I really should go to the gym.” And please, if I ever post the details of my workout, like how many reps I did, please kick me in the shin next time you see me.

A 26 Sentence Story

Desperately seeking inspiration for writing, I decided I better pull out one of my writing resources to get going. I've been wanting to write for days, but have only been able to purge self-loathing drivel in my journal. Like so many times, often we are sent what we need by fate (or coincidence) when we need it. Such was the case when the Book Bub recommendations popped into my email in-box yesterday. 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts by Ryan Andrew Kinder was the free offering of the day. At the time, I wasn't sure how or when I'd use it, but a free writing resource is something I never turn away. So I downloaded it to my iPad and told the others in my writing circle that it was available, with the caveat that I hadn't even given it a look yet.

Have to give credit where credit is due!

This morning I woke up determined to write. I read some articles online, reviewed a curriculum manual for a new program I'm planning to implement at work, and waited for the right topic, the right piece to hit me. It never came. I picked up an Anne Lamott book I've been reading, and surprisingly couldn't derive what I needed from it today. So I pulled out my iPad and opened Kinder's book. I flipped through the book, reviewing all the sections and perusing many of the prompts, and I posted to my group that there were 1,000, some awesome, some not. Then I put it away and did some laundry.

There was no way I was going to let Saturday go by without getting a piece of writing out. So many of the quotes by famous authors remind us that we can't wait for the right mood to hit us, we need to make time and write! It doesn't have to be good, it's just that writers write. Today I needed to write. I remembered one of the sections that appealed to me when I was looking through Kinder's book this morning. Section 4: Constrained Writing. All the prompts in this section are controlled and many of them limited the number of words or sentences you can use. Others require you to eliminate certain letters or words. Often writers don't want to be forced into narrow holes like this, but today I was determined to write and needed to be forced through that hole to get there. It worked! It inspired the brief excerpt of a story I've been wanting to tell for a long time. Maybe later it will lead to something else, but for now it's a constrained writing piece.

Prompt #123: 
The alphabet game! Write a story about anything. It must be 26 sentences long. Each sentence starts with the next letter in the alphabet.

“Are you serious? But why?”

“Can we talk about this another time?”

“Don’t you ever talk to her?” Each question I fired insensitively was met with an impatient silence. “Fine, I'm sorry.” Giving in was temporary, and I would soon try again. How is it possible a kid his age hadn’t talked to his mom in more than five years? It was a question to which I wanted answers, and one way or another I needed to find out what the story was. Just be patient, I thought to myself. Keep pressing him you'll push him away.

“Let’s go to the movies tomorrow," he said. "My parents are driving me nuts and I need to get out of the house.” 

“No, there’s a football game tomorrow night and you know I have to cheer.” 

“Oh,” he fell off with pathetic disappointment. 

“Please tell me about your mom,” I gently pressed.

“Quit asking, will you?," he snapped at her. "Really, I can’t explain it in a way that makes sense! She gave up custody when I was twelve, and I’ve lived with my dad ever since.” That day he broke the silence for the first time in his life, to me.

“Uh… I’m sorry.” Vilifying his mom in my head, I was already beginning to pass judgment. What kind of mother doesn’t fight for her kid? Ex-girlfriend is what I was about to become, so I quit before it was too late. “You wanna pick me up after the game tomorrow?”

Zero response meant maybe it was already too late, but deep inside I knew he was smiling on the other end of the phone.

I'm not really happy with my treatment of the X or the Z, but  the more I thought about it, the more convoluted other options started to sound.