People who read this blog regularly know I love making, discussing, reviewing and upholding New Year’s resolutions. Chalk it up to my sun in Capricorn. This year, though, I’ve been a lot more mellow about goals. Switching to freelance has been such a shock to my system (in a good way) that I didn’t make a list of resolutions and don’t plan to. My biggest goal this year is to adjust to a major life change.
I did make the quintessential New Year’s resolution move by joining a gym the first week of January. It’s a gym near my house that I had been eyeballing for a while, but I couldn’t justify the $50 a month fee. That’s so much money. (I’m a tightwad.) However, I rationalized that the $600 a year would be worth it, because it not only buys access to a gym, it also gives me a place to hide when Airbnbers are getting on my nerves, and basically an extra bathroom. If there’s ever a time crunch and I urgently need to poop or shower while an Airbnber is camped out in my bathroom, I can just go to the gym! (You don’t want to know how many times I’ve peed in my backyard. Often enough that it’s not a big deal, that is, not gym-worthy.)
Anyway, turns out that I LOVE GOING TO THE GYM. I love that it’s bare-bones–there’s no pool, no sauna, no group aerobics classes. Just serious equipment for serious gym fiends. WHICH I NOW AM. I love how easy it is to tack on a weights session after my run–I pass the gym anyway, on my way home, so stopping in and pumping some iron is easy to integrate into my existing routine. If it’s freezing or sweltering or pouring outside, I can just run on a treadmill! Lifting weights really takes a runner’s high to the next level, btw.
Also, there’s just something sexy about this gym. I don’t know how else to say it. I’ve never been in a gym so predominately peopled with young, good-looking people who are working out really hard. Bywater has a young median age– I read 36 somewhere*?–so it makes sense that those hard-bodied Millennials are getting their cardio and resistance training in somewhere between their coffee shop co-working sessions and gallery hopping. This is where. I figured there must be missed connections flying all over the place on Craiglist for this gym, so I checked, but there were only two in the M4M section. I expected more than that, but I guess it just reiterates that this place is for SERIOUS WORKOUT FIENDS. Not cruising.
Oh yeah, and the guy who signed me up REMEMBERED MY NAME and greets me when he sees me. And also, it’s fun to work out in the middle of the day, when I need a break from staring at my laptop and feel a little stir-crazy. I could go on and on about how great this gym is.
Bottom line–I’m glad I joined the gym. It suits my new lifestyle. Which also is great.
*haha, this is exactly my age
