In my journey for life-affirming and spite-induced self-improvement, I made a journey to the campus gym today. Alone! I went a few times at the end of the semester in the wake of whatever, but that was with a friend of mine and her boyfriend, both of whom are powerlifters. Going with the two of them was great, they showed me both how to use machinery and how to not kill myself with it. However, these guided hours at the recreation center didn’t really register in my brain the way running or writing has- perhaps I’m more egoistic than I thought, but there’s something about being accountable to others that dampens the whole “will to” thing. See, it’s all about cultivating will. Generally, I’m not a strong-willed person. I think it goes hand-in-hand with my aversion to sincerity- what could possibly exist in the world that’s worth trying for? Terrible things and fantastic things have happened to me while I amble, and I’m pretty sure those same things would happen even if I tried a little harder.
Well, that’s my usual thinking. Again, this is a story of overcoming. A bildungsroman about a nearly thirty ne’er-do-well finding greater meaning in the world and himself within it. At a minimum, I have to tell myself that if I want to make any forward progress.
Back to the gym, though I’ll begin from the morning. I woke up around 7:30 to the cacophony of mouth noises on plastic- my oldest cat Pablo (age 8) was hungry and had picked out a positively succulent piece of trash from the bin beside my bed. Lint roller sheets and Cliff bar wrappers are his favorites right now. A thing about me is I don’t usually go back to sleep. Pablo’s small teeth and prickled tongue are the sounds of a punch clock, telling me it’s time to be here once again. So, I fed him, ate a cup of yogurt, and sat on the sofa in my living room, reaching within myself to see if today is a rare day when I can shuffle back under the sheets and delay this whole thing. It wasn’t.
I don’t really want to write about the morning anymore- it was boring and any attempt to make the mundane seem less so is far beyond my ability. We’ll fast-forward to 1:00 p.m., as I arrive to the rec, routine in hand and five tabs open on my phone explaining how to do each exercise. I was anxious, I certainly don’t look like a gym goer (on account of not being a gym goer) and the second I grab a dumbbell, this hidden piece of lore about me (it’s obvious) will be known to everyone (they already know).
I walked to the free-weight section and sat at a bench. I looked around nervously, trying to see if anyone had caught on to me being there. They hadn’t. I began with overhead shoulder presses, I did two sets of eight before looking at my phone and realizing I did it all wrong. Not a great start. I finished up with that, now with presumably more correct form, then moved onto something called tricep push downs. I think I did that one wrong, too. Then I moved onto hammer and preacher curls, which were much, much harder to fuck up, so I regained a little confidence there. In between each set, I would scan around the room, trying to find the judgment I was sure existed. See, the anxiety here didn’t come from my feeling out-of-place physically, but from the worry that I had no clue what I was doing. I mean, I didn’t, but I didn’t want anyone else to know that. Incompetence should be kept a secret.
Enough talk of that, I can’t find the rhythm today. Bodies. My body and I have a strange relationship, almost parasitic. Physicality feels like a curse affixed upon me like a leech. There’s a distinct separation between “I” and the nose that sits in my peripheral, the feet below me, the hair above. “I” am centered squarely two inches back from the center of my eyebrows. I can feel myself spinning in there. Everything else is an attachment, luggage, a weight forced upon me. Philosophically, I’m not a dualist, however. I know that I am a confluence of tiny bugs and batteries. I just don’t feel that way. This friction between what I know and what I feel is a key issue of mine. I know lots of things I don’t feel. I feel lots of things I know not to be true. So, when speaking of my body, I’m just going to go with what I feel, since what I know is uninteresting and understood by just about anyone.
I don’t care for my body, not really- both in a qualitative sense and in a maintenance sense. I’ve had appetite issues my whole life, I’ve been a smoker going on a decade, I’ve never really exercised, etc. Despite this, I’m thin with good skin and nice hair, so it’s not like I was punished for my misdeeds against it. I resent my body for letting me get away with the lack of care. Perhaps if it was crueler in its response to me, I would have put a little more effort into shaping up. No one respects a doormat, you know. Not to say that I hate my body or think I’m ugly or whatever, I’m actually quite vain (shocking). But I do not care for my body. I think, again, its related to sincerity and irony. To be fit is to be earnest in your appreciation for life and yourself. To be detached is, well, not that. And I am detached from my body, if that isn’t apparent. Often, in college, I would present my whole form to friends and make a joke of it, which isn’t so irregular, but I think in my case, it was to deflect any sort of sincerity in my evaluation of myself. I cannot be ashamed or self-conscious if I am open with everything, only those with nothing to hide can bare it all. But I am ashamed, I am self-conscious. My body is not what I wish it was, but it’s easier to pretend like you accept everything of yourself to a humorous extent than to make peace with that.
I can’t seem to find the point I’m getting at, which is okay. Not everything has to be tied up with a neat bow that melds the themes together. The end result is this: I go to the gym now and will be super hot soon. I suppose I should work on like body acceptance, too, but that can come after I’m beautiful.
jeez, louise 