Wednesday, May 16

Lacing Up

My 14-year-old
swim-loving self
So here's a little confession: I've never exercised. Ever. Okay, I rode a bike when I was a kid. I did ballet for a dozen years or so, but I wasn't any good at it, didn't try very hard, and quit when I turned sixteen to start working at Baskin-Robbins. (Here's a link to raw vegan ice cream. I'm NOT giving you a link to Baskin-Robbins!) And all right, I do love to swim...but never enough to work up a sweat.

I've always figured, some people are athletes, and the rest of us do something useful with our lives. Exercise just seems a little...I don't know...self-indulgent. There are children to raise, and clothes to wash, and books to write, and college degrees to earn, and jobs to attend to. Exercise is what childless unemployed people do, right? Instead of kids and jobs? So I can't selfishly spend precious time exercising.

Yup. Sometimes I just invent things to feel guilty about. And I'm not even Catholic. But my husband, who IS Catholic -- and a guilt-ridden Italian Catholic at that -- finds time to exercise. What's my excuse?

Okay. I've got a better one: I fall down a lot. And people who exercise get sports injuries. Exercising would be a disaster for me, right?

Except, I fall down anyway. And perhaps the reason I fall down a lot is that I never exercise, and THAT'S the reason I don't know where my edges are.

Physical therapy was a bust. The gym membership is already paid for. Johnny Walker knew my phone number. I'd run out of excuses to stay home. So I pulled up my big-girl sweats and went back to the gym.

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