33.
LEFT AT THE ALTAR
At last. I was ready to take the vows again. Finally open to the kind of healthy, wonderful relationship I’d seen so many others have. I was done blaming past failures on everything and everyone. Ready to embrace a new life and devote myself to making it work.
Preparations were done. Announcements were made to family and friends. The moment came. The person officiating the commitment ceremony looked down at her papers, then back up at me with an approving nod, and spoke the two words that abruptly ended it all: “Bone health.”
I’m standing, stunned, in the private enrollment office at the gym in my brand-new $320 workout outfit. I feel like a bride left at the altar. A bride in overpriced, unreturnable spandex. A bride in equally unreturnable custom-insole support sneakers and pristine new wedding-white socks. I came here to commit to a future with the fabulous hot body I finally believe I deserve. I did not come here to commit to a future with bone health. My officiant, dressed in a mini magenta fitness onesie with TRAINER across the chest—the person I just let weigh and measure me—makes a little checkmark, hands me the Goals page from her clipboard, and bops out of the room.
I clutch the paper like a bridal bouquet. Silently repeat the words, just as any crushed bride standing at the altar would repeat any two-word relationship ender: “It’s over.” “Another woman.” “I’m sorry.”
“Bone health.”
This is not what I came here for today.
I came to the gym ready to say “I do!” to the sexy, sleek-muscled, flat-stomached, tight-reared, shapely armed, lean-legged body the universe has been telling me was out there for me my whole life. I want that! I’m finally ready to do everything it takes to get that! I did not spend $320 on wedding spandex and matching orthopedic sneakers for bone health!
The trainer bops back in.
“Bone health is a fine goal,” I say as politely as possible, “but what about . . .”
“Cardiovascular integrity! Of course!” she interrupts, plucks the Goals page from my hand, snaps it back on her clipboard, and checks another little box.
“Well, yes, but what about . . .” I continue.
“Joint mobility!” she proclaims and makes another checkmark.
“Well, yes. But . . .”
That other thing! I think to myself. The sexy, sleek-muscled, flat-stomached, tight-reared, shapely armed, lean-legged body thing that you promise everyone else! THAT thing!”
“Of course!” She nods knowingly as if she heard every word. “Goes without saying!”
I smile, straighten, pull my wedding spandex down over my rear, and wait to hear the words I came hear.
“You’ll also gain improved digestive function!” she pronounces.
Joining a new gym at my age is the exact equivalent of joining a dating site at my age and realizing my “ideal life mate” is eighty-nine years old. I can’t look at my twenty-two-year-old trainer and argue that I’m ready to commit to a hot, lean, sexy new body any more than I could walk into a juice bar and announce that I’m ready to commit to a hot, handsome thirty-five-year-old hunk. I’m too old. Too old to ever look like the babe in the poster on the wall of the gym, no matter how many hours in a row I work out. Finally old enough to have the confidence and willpower to commit to the body I want and deserve, and am too old to achieve it.
Of course I’ll get stronger by joining a gym again. Of course it’s all good for me. But it’s demoralizing when all the improvements for my age bracket are for the interior, not the exterior. No one talks about the radiant young skin I could have anymore. They offer to “repair skin damage at the subepidermal level.” The woman in the commercial doesn’t pat her tummy to flash the killer abs that I too could have. She pats to tell me that I too could increase the probiotic culture count in my intestines. All those 10,000 steps I’m supposed to take every day? Not for slimmer hips, just “increased blood flow to the brain to help slow memory loss.” And now not a peep about the sexy, svelte muscles I could get by joining this gym. Only that weight training will increase my bone health and do all those other inner things that will help me stay an old lady longer.
I’m tired of spending all my time and money on the inner me! I silently protest. I want results on the outside! Visible young-person outer results, not old-lady inner results!!
My trainer either doesn’t notice my angst or is dismissing it as commitment jitters. Or she’s simply been too busy getting the vows and an extremely one-sided prenup ready for me to sign. Pages of waivers saying the gym isn’t responsible for any amount of pain or unhappiness I might experience in the relationship. Clauses declaring I agree to keep paying every month, even if I want out. Gym alimony. I take one more good look at my Goals page. It’s like a bad arranged marriage. Was there something better out there for me?
Standing at the altar in wedding spandex.
Do I really want to go home and start all over? Do I want to take a chance that the next experience could be even worse? That the next trainer at the next gym might assess me and declare my fitness goal to be “increased bladder control”?
And so I sign the vows. As a symbol of my commitment, I get a little plastic bar code to wear on my key ring that will be scanned to identify me when I come in. I slip it on the ring, right next to the little plastic bar code from the grocery store loyalty club. A perfect wedding set: grocery store and gym.
I leave with my vows and prenup stuffed in my purse. I hold the key ring up as I walk toward my car, hoping someone will notice my new bar code sparkle in the sun.
Is the need to belong to something so strong that I’m proud of pledging myself to a future with anything? . . . Or is part of me actually still young enough to secretly believe I’ll turn this relationship into what I came here dreaming it could be, in spite of what everyone says? Do I really think I can trample all logic, science, and reality? Resemble anything close to the hot, toned babe in the poster one day?
Yes, I do.
I DO!
Standing on the sidewalk in wedding spandex, I feel a flush of endorphins create blushing bride cheeks. Now, this is a commitment I want to own. I will sprint past the limits! Lift all those expectations! Stomp all over what others believe is possible.
Good thing, I think, unlocking the car with another flash of my bar-code wedding set . . . Good thing I’m going to have nice strong bones.