Mar
22
I’ve been wavering on how I feel about CrossFit for a while now, and I stayed away from the gym all last week to try and . . . I don’t know, get some perspective, I guess. I jumped around the living room to DVDs, I ran more miles than I’ve run in months. If there is a form of exercise that is 100% enjoyable I’ve yet to find it, but I noticed that even during the mostly-ridiculous moments of throwing punches in front of the TV and the exceedingly-heinous part of my neighborhood loop with that lung-shitting hill, there were these little bursts of feeling—if only for the briefest of intervals—as though I was fully plugged into life. Lit up like a Christmas tree.
That’s the best way I can think of to describe the fleeting endorphin rush, that elusive exercise high that never lasts as long as I’d like it to. Most of the time for me the payoff of working out is afterwards, when I can feel awesome for having it be over and done with—but sometimes the exertion itself has its own reward.
I’ve never felt that way with CrossFit. For a long time I thought that was probably okay, that a workout designed to push you to your max isn’t supposed to be fun and that’s all there is to it. But I miss it. I miss feeling good while I’m sweating. I miss the sense of accomplishment. I’ve rarely regretted a CrossFit workout, but I’ve also traded feeling amazing and strong for a sensation of being virtuously wrecked.
For that and a number of other reasons, I cancelled my membership this week. I told myself that I’ve given it six months, that there’s no reason to keep trying to make the most of something that just isn’t right for me, that there’s no shame in moving on. Still, I cried myself into hiccups, tangled up in a pile of mental crap I can’t even fully unravel.
I know I’m disappointed because I really wanted to love CrossFit. I know how immensely rewarding it’s been for other people and I wanted to be one of those success stories, all sinew and muscle and a newfound sense of badassery. After years of trying all sorts of different things—gyms, personal trainers, DVDs, classes, swimming, running, biking—I was hoping I’d found my thing. The thing I embrace wholeheartedly, the thing I get really good at instead of being enthusiastic but barely competent.
I also know I’m more than a little humiliated that there’s a social aspect that I never got right with. It seems like the fact that I never really made gym friends or even got to the point where I could comfortably walk in the door without feeling like I was looking for a table in a middle school cafeteria verifies what I’ve always suspected about myself: that I am a pathetic unlikable dork.
And, of course, I feel like a wimp. Like whatever I tell myself—oh, the weather’s getting nicer, maybe I’ll get back into kickboxing, start doing some more races—is just an excuse. As if it’s anything other than admitting defeat.
I’m not really sure why this decision has stirred up so much murk in my brain. If I were listening to someone else say all this, I’d be like, are you fucking kidding me? You’ve got zero reasons to beat yourself up over making a choice to stop doing something that isn’t making you happy. Life is too short for forcing yourself to do things with a crappy suck-to-yay ratio, good on you for recognizing you need something different. Good on you for not continuing to dump boatloads of cash into something you don’t love.
Still. Still.
:::
(Thanks for bearing with me as I write this out. It helps.)
Mar
20
I was at the tanning salon this afternoon (I know, okay? I know) and the Jersey Shore extra behind the counter asked me if I was interested in purchasing any pre- or post-tanning lotions. For the, like, totally affordable price of only $55, she told me, I could get a bottle of “Epicurious Natural Bronzing Lotion,” which has, like, natural ingredients in it.
Fifty-five dollars? For a bottle of something that looks like it’s normally used on a porn set? No thanks, I said. She asked what kind of daily moisturizer I used and I shrugged and said I thought it was something from The Body Shop.
Ohhhh, she said, in a Dramatic Tone. Yeah, see, some lotions, like the ones from Body Shop? They have this one ingredient that totally pulls the tan from your skin. Yeah, it really sucks. So, like, that’s why we recommend our lotions.
It’s quite unfortunate that the exact lotion I happen to use has this side effect of magically lightening skin tone, although perhaps had Michael Jackson known about the results of using coconut-scented Body Butter, he could have saved a boatload of cash back in the day.
In other news of weekend bullshittery, JB and I visited a furniture store yesterday to look for something to replace one of our horribly uncomfortable destroyed-by-children couches. We found one that seemed to be decent, and it had a pricetag we thought we could live with.
This is vinyl, right? asked JB, running his hand over its surface.
Oh no, said the sales guy. Nope, that one’s leather.
You sure? JB asked, incredulous.
Definitely, the guy assured us. 100% leather. Super durable. Did I mention we can deliver this in two days? Or you could take the floor model, save a couple bucks.
It wasn’t until we were at home researching the tag info we’d snapped a photo of that we realized it was bonded leather. Basically pieces of scrap leather puréed with plastic. Virtually guaranteed to peel or scratch or generally look like shit after a couple of rambunctious kids get near it.
I get it, I guess. I get that people work on commission and they just want to make the sale right then, because if you walk out the door the chances become much smaller that you’re ever going to come back with checkbook in hand. But, see, why not be truthful, and hope for some loyalty in return? Tell me what the cheap couch is made of and explain what that means, maybe steer me towards something else. Commiserate with me over the ridiculousness of a fifty-five-dollar lotion and maybe I’ll like your business so much I’ll buy another month of deliberately exposing my rapidly-aging body to ultraviolet radiation.
You know?
Anyway, instead of shopping around for more furniture options, we decided to swap around the chairs we already have. We moved the (actual) leather couches from the front room to the TV room, and the squashed fabric couch and pretty-but-not-super-comfy yellow chair into the front room where we rarely sit. I suppose there’s always a chance Dylan attacks the cowhide with scissors, but I guess I’m willing to risk it if the payoff is not feeling like my lower back is going to be permanently damaged from slumping on toddler-mashed cushions.
Top photos are before (and they were taken with a vastly superior camera, so pardon the many discrepancies in lighting and whatnot), bottom photos are what it looks like now.
I still sort of wish we could just go out and upgrade our furniture and re-paint some walls and maybe have a few less IKEA-purchased items and shit, have a talented designer come swooping in and magically awesome-fy my entire goddamned house…on the other hand, I’m glad we figured out how to make do with our existing stuff.
It’s so hard, sometimes, to resist the pull of want. Although in the case of fifty-five dollar body lotion, not so much.
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