New People at the Gym...

If you go to the gym regularly, you get to know, at least by sight, the people who also frequent the gym.  And you develop a rhythm and cadence with your workouts and the other people around you also working out.  And there are those that inspire you, annoy you and down right vex you...

But you develop a routine that interfaces with other people and their workouts.

But then a new person comes along and it throws the entire system into chaos.  

The guy that brings a giant gym bag with him and carries it around to all the machines in a small environment...

The woman who sets herself up in an area of the gym that takes up all the weights and space...

The new guy who comes in and has no idea what he is doing and just does weird fucking shit that you can’t help but be distracted by...

The loud grunter that drops the weights jarring everyone in the place...

The woman that believes it is her God given right to use whatever machine she wants regardless of who is already on said machine or is next in line for it, and then lets her irritation be known...

The chatty woman who makes her rounds and attempts to engage everyone in conversation, about herself the entire time...

The extremely attractive woman that shows up in a unitard...

I could go on, but I won’t.  You get the gist.

Last evening there was this guy doing bizarre hand movements, no weights. He just stood there, doing weird shit with his hands and arms.  I could not see the point of what he was doing, and I really tried to find the point.  Mostly because I learn from watching others.  You see people on the regular, you can learn from what they do, or in this guy’s case, what not to do...

I am no bastion of physical prowess but I have learned from the last six years of regular gym attendance a few things about fitness and form and commitment.

I found the new guy off putting.  His bizarre hand movements irritated me, which I know says way more about me than it does him.  I was disturbed...he was just over there flapping away doing his thing.

He has certainly not been the first person I have seen at the gym that makes me scratch my head and wonder “WTF?”  And he will likely not be the last.  And I will also own that I am happy to share this most hallowed ground with all who dare to enter, but I am also going to have to own that I am going to judge them and allow for a certain amount of “what the fuck are they even doing???”

New people at the gym can be entertaining, exciting, intimidating, annoying, irritating, inspiring and educating.  It really is a physical crap shoot as to who is doing what on any given day.  And I will also totally own that I like things the way they are, with the people who I see every day, who are there with me in the trenches doing the fucking deal.  I love seeing our mutual forward progress.  The scrawny adolescent boys that come in and grow into stronger, more confident versions of themselves.  The women post baby that come in and work so fucking hard to reclaim the parts of themselves that motherhood takes.  The older women, such as me, that come to feel healthy and pretty and somewhat delusional about their aging and ability to still claim a seat on the fuckable or datable bus.  The older men who come every single day for decades that are built like a brick shithouses, handsomely rewarded for years of dedication and commitment.

I suppose I will come to love the weird flapping arm guy too.  But right now, I want him to fall in line and get with the program...and even as I type this I acknowledge that he is already with a program, it is just not MY program.

We humans crave change but remain stubbornly resistant to it once it comes upon us.  Which is the whole issue with the gym in the first place.  We come for change, we remain for change and apparently I am quite judgey about the whole ordeal.  Which is, of course, my work to do, to release my judgment and my thoughts that I know better or whatever, and just allow the space to be held by someone new who is doing their best to better themselves, care for themselves and to worship at the temple of self.

I mean aren’t all temples vessels to a higher self, whether we are at church attempting to become better humans, or school attempting to broaden our minds, or at the gym attempting to perfect our bodies for a million difference reasons?

New people at the gym are welcome, even when they don’t rack the weights, pee on the bathroom floor and do weird fucking shit on the machines.  I am sure I irritated someone when I got there...hell, I probably still irritate people and that is the basis for all my growth and change in this life, I see myself as part of and not doing all that I can to define myself out of any particular circle...or problem or solution.

Again, still...