I walked over to the neighborhood gym hoping to get out of this awful mood. It was 5:30 a.m. and my eyes were stinging with insomnia, belly was rumbling with hunger. I made sure to wear a big long sleeve t-shirt to hide my skinny arms and chest. It had been months since I last worked out at the gym; my body was like a skeleton.
Every day I drive past the gym wondering if today will actually be the day I use my sixty-dollar-a-month membership. I remember years ago, hating myself if even two days passed without iron bars gripped in my hands. There used to be a time when I would workout in a cut-off shirt or tank top to show off “the guns”. Now my confidence has turned to embarrassment. My former body, once tanned, toned, and pumped with protein, at present time is pale, puny, and not consuming food properly.
As I entered the front door of the gym I was hit by an overwhelming glare of fluorescent light, the last thing my equilibrium needed after a night of sleeplessness. I paced around for a few minutes trying to recapture some of those old psychological techniques that used to motivate me. As if in a trancelike state, headphones blaring, eyes and mind focused, I used to wage bodily warfare. Packing my gym bag was like preparing for a business trip and I had a great body to show for all my dedication, not to mention the endorphin rush working out does for a fatigued soul. I used to have so much energy; I used to want to wake up early and face the day head on. The pressures and hassles awaiting me on the other side of the bed sheets these days are so overwhelming that working out seems a big waste of time. But lately I've been missing it.
On this particular morning I was nothing short of miserable. I went to the dumbbell rack to start my usual upper-body regiment. As I contemplated what exercise to attempt first a sudden feeling of powerlessness overcame me. Whereas in the past I would warm-up with 30-pounders when doing overhead shoulder presses, today the 20-pounders felt like I was trying to lift Stonehenge.
I looked at my reflection from frazzled hair to bloodshot eyes to untied shoelaces and I was unrecognizable to myself. Those truth-telling wall-sized mirrors that used to display my chiseled results left me appalled by the average physique looking back at me currently. In my mind I still thought I looked great but my reflection looked exactly like all those other ordinary men I've dreaded becoming, all those frail and fat thirty, forty, and fifty-something year-olds who blame their shortcomings on working full-time, being married and raising kids. Despite my acceptance of a family-orientated lifestyle, a twenty-eight year old man should never feel like a forty-eight year old one.
I could barely muster enough strength to stand up at this point. Maybe this fatigue had more to do with me not getting any sleep than I thought, or maybe this is exactly what middle-aged men have been preaching to me ever since I took up weight-lifting, or maybe this is just the wear and tear that comes from a little thing called life. It's not as easy busting out set after set when all that unrelenting stress constantly bears down on your psyche. Merely two years ago I proposed to my wife and started thinking of a family, that is when I was muscular and youthful looking. Well that stud is no more, thanks in most part to the never-ending stack of bills and seven-day workweeks I am responsible to endure. Fragile and haggard, I have become the shadow of a man.
I remember going to the gym with my friends and how it became a daily necessity for us. Looking back, it was really admirable the way we encouraged each another with slews of cuss words and insults trying to get the best out of each workout. Sometimes we'd make a joke and crack each other up right in the middle of a tough “max-out” set with hundreds of pounds over our heads. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do with hundreds of pounds of weights over our heads but the comedy and camaraderie made us drunk with power. No matter how bad my day was, no matter how spectacular my misery, my workout buddies always made me feel larger than life. I always knew that someone was ready and willing to get me out of my funk, to kick my ass for two punishing yet ultimately rewarding hours. This was one of those carefree eras a lot of young men go through before reaching true adulthood, those good old days when you could proudly take off your shirt. Fast-forward to this particular morning: no friends to upstage or out-lift, girls to gawk at or try to impress, or overabundance of testosterone to be pumped through my veins.
When I took a seat, more like collapsed, at the Pull-downs machine I questioned whether or not I could manage a single repetition. As I looked around at the other gym members I noticed not a single one of them looking back at me. It seemed as though I was the only person distracted and stationary, the only one unable to break a sweat. Even the old ladies walking on the treadmills seemed hypnotized with their individual workouts. For the first time ever I felt like I didn't belong there, that all those exhausting hours, diet plans, and supplements were for nothing.
After enough pondering had passed I convinced myself to give the Pull-down machine a good solid “JUST DO IT!” Suffice it to say I did seven or eight half-hearted repetitions before calling it quits. It was safe to say this spontaneous excursion to the gym had turned out to be one big disappointment. I took one final look into that truth-telling, wall-sized mirror hoping to catch some sort of reassuring glimpse of how seven or eight measly reps might immediately reshape a body for the better, but the only thing reshaped was my face - exhausted in minutes, assuredly saddened for days.
I headed again towards the exit of the gym. Other members making their entrance looked spry and energetic, dry-cleaned work suits and gym bags slung around their backs, their schedules sure to be filled with important meetings and luncheons. They represent everything I have always wanted to be: a fully functional early riser with a nine-to-five job that still has the time and commitment to work out three or more days a week. Insomnia, depression, procrastination: are these distractions and hindrances allowed to coexist at the gym; apparently not.
Fifteen minutes after leaving my apartment in hopes of gaining physical and mental enlightenment I found myself right back where I started from, sitting alone in the dark at my kitchen table, unable to fall asleep, angry as hell.
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