Prosaic Paradise

Thank you, Breakfast Club – not the movie. The 80s band. Does anyone else remember that song or is it just me?

I was telling my friends Christie and Megan at lunch today that it’s been a while since I got that queue-full feeling in my head. Like if I have one more detail to think about, that detail is going to get completely lost like a sad packet. I know I reached that point yesterday sitting in my car reaching for my notebook with the hunger (and aggressive pawing motions) of a savanna lion to write down that thing that if I did not write it down right now, it would be gone possibly forever or at least until it was too late to do anything about. Yes, I have lists. I have apps to take care of my timing. But there is such a thing as too much.

And I haven’t even picked out the carpet I want to put into the spare room.

Today though, after work I decided not to think about anything except how good it would feel to go to the gym. 99% of the time, I do not think it would feel good. I think it would feel terrible. Usually. Which is a lie. So 99% of the time I am lying to myself. OK, well, that’s a solvable problem, supposedly.

Of course I walk up to the front of the joint and who do I see. Like, first thing, with a client, out in front of the gym. My old trainer. Of course. Who last left me pleading voice mails saying, “please come back, I know you can do it, where are you?” Of course she is the first one to see me come back for the first time in months.

Well I walked right up to her and I said “I am back!” and then had to have that embarrassing conversation where I confess I can’t afford a trainer and in fact just had to cancel my guitar lessons thank you very much. She tried to sell me a little, but I just can’t do it. Also… sadly… her torture sessions did not make me feel good about going to the gym. They made me feel like crying. So. We’ll be trying again but my way.

Ariel is a super nice lady. But I can’t afford to work with her and I need to not walk right back into that memory of crying while my triceps told me “no” and she told me “another set”. Fortunately, today was full of encouragement. Ariel understood and she cheered me on through the door and so did her smiling client. Then while I was on the treadmill I met Mary Beth, who liked my tattoos. Then doing stretches I met Nick and Janice, another trainer and client, and may have signed on for kettlebell classes.

I guess I just had exactly the experience I needed to think of the gym as my happy place. I got a good workout that I managed to administer myself. People were smiling and friendly. The only thing they could have done to make it more awesome would have been to hand me a piece of cake as I got ready to go.

Lately I haven’t been able to sleep because of the aforementioned mental queue. I have had to break out the LOTR cassettes, and people, that means I’m in dire straits, when I need the endless walking of the Two Towers to stop my brain. So every time I am starting to crack I remember how you can’t crack or even think about getting signed up for CPR classes or returning mail order items that are wrong or angry emails about that thing you botched at work or buying prescription cat food or whatever else is on the big list when you are trying to press up your whole weight on your spindly weak arms one last time.

Tags: health

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