Old Dog, New Tricks?

Imagine for a moment your greatest fear.... is it public speaking? Climbing treacherous heights? Re-taking geometry? For me, all fear revolves around anything athletic, anything that involves running, catching, straining your muscles, or perhaps even sweating. Part of this of course, stems from years of humiliation during the P.E. classes the state forced upon me as part of my "education," part of this can be attributed to my extreme lack of physical coordination, and then there is the factor that the muscles most people have seem to be missing in my own personage. I'm the scrawny-shouldered kid that was always picked last, and who, now over-compensates for her insecurity with sarcasm and disdain for all things healthy.

And so it was with great fear & trepidation, that I stepped foot in to a gym this week. And not only did I attempt to "work out," but I actually paid money to become a member there. Was it a sudden lapse in my sanity? A pre-mature mid-life crisis? Or simply the desire to wear a bathing suit again without having to worry about nauseating the people around me?

I'm going to go with the latter one. When the overseer of the gym asked me if I was here to "get healthy," I said, "oh, dear heavens no, this is just a vain thing...you know, I want to look good." Apparently she'd never heard that response before, which leads me to believe, other people are lying about their motives to exercise. But that's besides the point.

Ultimately, the point of this blog is simply to state that a miracle has occurred, I went to a gym 3 times this week and worked out with a trainer each time. If you actually know me, you'd realize this is indeed miraculous. My sister who's always dreaded the idea of attention, said it would be the equivalent of her signing up for acting classes. I almost expected the earth to shift, and Obama to release a press conference saying he wanted less government involvement in our health care system, or for Oprah to admit she's not omniscient, or maybe for a Christian character to be portrayed on television in a positive light..... but of course none of those things happened.

I did, however, break a sweat today. And it's going to take a whole separate blog post to recount to you how incredibly awkward this whole experience has been. So if you're not laughing now at my irony, you will perhaps be laughing later... at my expense.