Reflections on the gym, compliments of the Lehaye ceiling

I was flat on my back in the gym today, staring at the ceiling like I do after every workout. I love that ceiling. I’ve been looking up at that ceiling almost every day since the beginning of the summer, and I’m so familiar now with the way the structural rods support the roof. So familiar, in fact, that my thoughts take shape around those rods.

Today, that thought was how far I’ve come, in terms of the gym. I started by thinking back to when Bella first took me to the gym my freshman year. I remember her teaching me how to squat, correcting my form with just the bar. I remember the day that she taught me to deadlift, the first day that I deadlifted a whole plate, and the day that I was sad because I couldn’t quite benchpress the bar. I used to do thirty minutes of cardio before every workout, just because it felt right. I remember the first time I did a Bulgarian split squat with like five pounds in each hand…now I use twenty five pound dumbbells.

I pulled out my phone to find a picture of myself freshman year, and as I scrolled, memories of working out beyond the bounds of Lehaye Rec and Fit came flooding back. During Covid summer I laid my yoga mat on the carpet in our orange school room. I’ve purchased several Planet Fitness memberships in my day. Josh and Helen’s basement served as my home gym for a while. I remember in high school when my only fitness goal was to be able to run the whole way around our block, for sure less than a mile. I remember sitting at my desk and building sequences of Blogilates videos on Youtube…I could still do those workouts in my sleep, I did them so many times when I lived at home.

Even before that, I remember the one Jillian Michaels DVD that Mom used, the one with the orange cover. It was a list of like eight or so segments by body part, and the whole full-body workout totaled 40 minutes. I remember doing that routine early in the mornings before my dual enrollment classes, and how proud I was when I could finally do the whole video. Now I could easily spend two hours in the gym.

Honestly, it’s all so encouraging. I didn’t take the fast track to where I am. And I don’t have to take the fast track to where I’ll be. It’s never been about the tangible goals of losing weight or gaining muscle or running a marathon or anything like that for me. My goal has always been just to move, because my body needs to move in order to think and to feel. So there’s no rush. I’m doing this for the benefit today, not to be the best or the biggest or the strongest. I’ll never be that. There is freedom in my smallness, in my very tangible weakness. And that’s why I go to the gym: to remember how to breathe, to remember that some things are too heavy for me to carry.

This summer has been, like Abi said at the leg press the other day, transformational. I’m stronger right now than I’ve ever been before. But maybe it’s just the first time that my slow transformation has become tangible. Maybe, the gym has been framing my body and my character for more years than I realize.

I told myself today as I wobbled down the stairs after leg day, “I am so proud of you.” And the knot in my stomach released and suddenly I could breathe again. Which I think was the whole point anyways.

-em :)