Gymtastics

So it happened: I joined the gym. I had gone all these years being the rebel non-joiner (I was clique-less as a teen, mommy-and-me free as a young mom, a failure in a book club, and I was kicked off a committee at church once for having too strong of an opinion about, well, most things). But I was getting bored with my little self-imposed, in-the-house exercise routines and my neighborhood jaunts have been lately messed with by these biblically saturated days.

So two weeks or so ago, I sashayed down to the gym and walked into a class called Zumba. Do you know about this? An hour of cardio set to Latin rhythms. I thought I could handle this because, well, you know: I dance. Let's just say I made it through. Barely. Nearly defeated, I rose the next day to conquer Abs and Arms, which is to say fire and indescribable pain. The next day I chose to think that I could Body Step my way to glamour (excuse me, but what's an A step? What's an L?). One day later, I could be found at Body Pump, thinking (the thought was all over my face): Barbells? Are you kidding me? For an hour?

Every day I'd come home and say, That's it. I cannot. The next morning I'd rise with the desperate hope of proving to me that I can.

And guess what? I am finding that I love the challenge. That I love the way the other women work, how they don't give up, how they make room for the one or two men, how today one brought me a mat and one brought me a chair, and how somehow community coexists with anonymity. I like thinking that maybe someday I can and that, already, so many others do.