Thursday, 14 July 2022
ON HEARTBREAK, GYM MEMBERSHIPS AND COMMUNITY
I am at the gym, watching people lift things that defy the weight of their own bodies as I type this blog post. Sometimes I wonder which joy or grief makes a person carry a 50kg dumbbell like it's sachet water. I wonder what unspoken thing makes a person run on the treadmill for two hours non-stop. What near misses in a person's life, prompts them to skip over a thousand times in five minutes. What are they searching for with all this gravity, is it hope, is it anger?
Going to the gym has taught me that fundamentally, everybody craves community. We want to be seen, to feel and be felt, to touch and be touched. To speak and be spoken to. I have also come to appreciate gestures, and how quickly they become a love language, an invitation for friendship, a welcoming. Sometimes all a person needs to champion this world is acknowledgement. I have seen people, who were on the brink of giving up a deadlift attempt, succeed, just because they got a wave from a random gym buddy. For some people, hope is the motivation a trainer gives in the middle of a difficult set. It is the shared laughter of two strangers as they fall face flat, after attempting a one-minute plank.
I am mostly shy at the gym, but I have gone there long enough to know that nobody is really looking at your love handles or mocking your belly fat, except of course they are mad. Most people just want to sweat and go. If your experiences at the gym are different, please feel free to share.
Anyway, I want to use this medium to announce to you that I got my first heartbreak. It was a very brief relationship seeing that we never really spoke. Just know that he was really muscular, tall, dark and handsome. I had planned everything out, I would pretend to drop my 10kg dumbbell on my big toe, and he would rush to help me out, our eyes would jam and before you know it, we are making hot Instagram reels with Muni Long's, hrs and hrs. Plan B was to approach him and ask him how he grew his muscles, he would then start talking and talking because you know men like to brag about these things, my strategy was to seize the opportunity and ask him for his number, and because I serve a living God, he would give it to me and we would start texting and asking each other have you eaten and in about nine years, we would be walking down the aisle.
I was about to shoot my well-thought-out shot when I found out he was married and his wife was also a member of the gym. And since my name is Roseline Mgbodichinma and not asunder, I have carried my crush and moved on swiftly. Let me continue from where I stopped with the duke of Hastings abeg. My takeaway from this experience is that not all things we crave are cut out for us. That no matter how long our desires are, there are some pleasures we should not reach. I know the full-time side chicks have left the chat but okay.
At the gym, there are people who don't even work out, they just come to gist, converse and take photos. I am learning that this is not a bad thing. Maybe coming to the gym is what escape looks like to these people. I am learning to appreciate the seemingly little things people use as a coping mechanism.
I have missed writing here and sharing bits of my life with you. So this feels good. I have also tried to be consistent with this whole fit-fam thing, but I am failing woefully. I hope to get my workout routine and diet in check next week, fingers crossed. I pray I don't skip the gym more than two times this week. Also, my gym instructor is a woman who is over fifty and this makes me feel so safe and motivated in a way that I have never felt before, she is so strict and flexible and I adore her. She makes me laugh and is very fond of her rabbits, she takes care of them before coming to the gym to challenge my body. This makes me so joyful.
What little things have given you joy this month, please tell me. I want to share in your joy.
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