Let Yourself Go

Every evening after work I come to a fork in the road. Literally and figuratively. I can turn one way to go to the gym and the opposite way to go home and sit. If we're being completely truthful, most of the time I head home to the crib. Today, by some weird twist of the steering wheel, I headed toward the gym. I don't know if it was my guardian Jillian Michaels angel or what, but I found myself pulling into an overcrowded parking lot that had bulky, tan guys coming out of it left and right. Enter mild anxiety attack. I told you I would be transparent and honest in this blog so here it comes. I don't be-bop it into the gym with my Foot Locker outfit and brand new tennis shoes on. I might as well have a trench coat and sunglasses on. First thought: Why do people wear shirts at all if they are going to rip them to shreds and annihilate the armpits of them? Hello, Mr. Armpit Hair. Secondly, I never know when or what time I'm going to be here, yet there's always that same perfect woman following me wherever I go. It's like she knows my schedule and has shown up to make me feel bad. Does she EVER leave? I usually overhear a conversation in which she tells her neighbor that she has had seven children all by natural childbirth. I give my slight pooch a stare-down and think, "And there's never even been a living human creature in there. Way to go, Ash."

Getting married recently has started me thinking. You always hear of people "letting themselves go" when they get married. The hypothesis is that you find someone who loves you and accepts you for who you are-- so you just don't try anymore. And that may be partially true. But I have another theory: Life, marriage, laundry, bills and work come into the very essence of your being and suck out the desire to do booty curls. I used to be that girl who was ALWAYS at the gym and lived for the next time I could tan. Tonight, I stared at more machines than I did, watched a girl jumprope and fell dead, snoring asleep in the tanning bed afterwards. I didn't just 'let myself go,' sending off my old self in a red balloon. I was robbed. One minute I was doing Pilates on the floor and the next minute I was buying a Tempurpedic pillow.

Oh, and don't even get me started on food. I think there just comes a point when you are burnt out. I ate so many dressing-less salads in college that now if I am anywhere near a salad bar, I just cringe. I rebelliously stare at it while I nab the mac and cheese. Pardon my statistics, but I think it's something like 1 M&M will have you circling around the Earth 10 times to burn it off. I have also realized that when you get older, everything you look forward to revolves around food. Lunch break= food. Breaktime= snack. Home time=supper. Social time = chips, Velveeta, Chex Mix and Tums.

I find myself salivating over a lunchroom cheeseburger, OK? That's when you know someone else has taken residence of your old self. I want 5 minutes of serenity so bad that I have unrealistically linked it to shipped in, boxed meat and processed cheese. And when you're married and you don't have a lot of time or money, what is synonymous with husband? Food. Let's eat. What do you want to eat? What's for supper 3 days from now? And it doesn't help when you start to find out that husbands aren't as mindful of your imperfections as you thought they were. You want soft and fluffy? I can do soft and fluffy like you've never seen. 

This, my friends, is what happens. It's not some conscious choice that you don't want to be attractive for your mate anymore. I think we all know better than that. It's this gradual discouragement that goes too far. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. But I'm determined to, little by little, fight the good fight. It's not going to be easy. Those that say it is are either clinically insane or some sort of superhuman. But it will take eating one (OK, maybe two) brownies instead of 5 and making that other turn to the gym on days I don't want to. But isn't that what life is anyway? A bunch of small, hard decisions that lead to an end result. 

So, until the diet exorcist performs a casting out spell, I suppose it will be an ongoing process. So, scoot over girl on the exercise mat. There's a new girl in town. And she wants one of those big bouncy balls.