That evil man. I woke up early, the day after Thanksgiving. I heard him slipping quietly into the bathroom, changing into his workout clothes. He is a morning squirrel...usually waking at 3:00 a.m. and starting his daily routine of working out at the gym, showering and then reading the Scriptures before heading off to work. My morning routine consists of... well, whatever happy or urgent whim hits me at any given moment.
But this day, a holiday, at 6:00 a.m., I agreed to go with him to the gym. Don't ask me why. I've been paying on that thing for years and have rarely accessed it, though heaven knows I need to. Ken had already sent a basic workout program to my phone. Can I kill him yet? He patiently walked me around to each machine, kindly showing me proper form and timing. Doesn't he know that I already know this stuff? I reminded him that I was a college athlete and all that, to no avail. He insisted that I start small, with very light weights so as not to injure my poor muscles after all these years of atrophy. I was shocked at how weak I was. For years, until real estate took over my life, I worked up on ladders and scaffolding with my art and paint businesses. I prided myself on being strong and capable. But here I was, kitten-like and humbled by my years of wimpiness. The next day, he was already up and at his errands, but I managed to peel myself out of that comfy-cozy-warm bed and trudge over to the gym for a second session. A Christmas miracle, for sure.
Now it's going on two weeks and I've managed to raise the mummy more mornings than not. There is a beauty to just hauling yourself straight out of slumber, with no makeup and bed-head hair, and not caring one whit about what the macho folks think about you at the gym. I've worn my crazy cat lady clothes and old shoes, put air buds in my ears, prepping a good podcast and stumbling in there with one goal in mind: get it done and get the heck back home. There's no socializing, no chit-chat, no commentary. When it comes time to get on the bike or treadmill, I program in HGTV and zone out. Everybody else there is on the same mission. It's going to take me a minute to get out of the wimpy stratosphere, but I'm praying for endurance and patience to get stronger and better equipped for the future. Meanwhile, new things head across my brain waves, like, I don't understand bruiser men with chests as big as Greek gods but who skip leg day. I think I'm invisible when I'm there, so hopefully I won't have to hear their critique on floppy mice like me.
It's not even New Years yet, so thankfully this has nothing to do with a resolution or anything. Last year's word for me was Surrender. Maybe I'll give that one another year to sink in.
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