Oh Honey, Can't Lives on Won't Street

oedipa_maas

(tip of the hat to the movie "Flawless" for that line).

Exercise is a bear for me. A big bear that eats my lunch and then trashes my tent. I have amazing friends on my feed that are just tearing it up fitness-wise, and so often think, "I can't do that." This is especially true of strength training and its results. "My body will never be like that." Which is fundamentally true. My body is my body and if I start kicking it like they do, my results will be my results. Meaning, my body will look like its own good self, even if I buff up like a madgirl.

I'm losing weight, but I'm afraid of exercise. I'm severely asthmatic and have a rare condition that causes agonizing pain and immobility flares at random times. I sucked at gym my entire school career. The kid sitting at the bottom of the rope trying with her stringy arms to lift herself even one inch? That was me.

Even so, some years ago I started biking and I was good at it! Slow, but good at it. I would coast down green hills, puff my way up those same hills, think of the short stories I was working on, just zen out and feel that good hollow place that meditative activity can encourage.

Right now I don't have a bike, so of course, my brain thinks, Exercise without biking? Nothing will ever be as fun. I can't. Other exercises are unattainable. Wait until you get a bike again. You're too weak to try even a squat. One squat is beyond you. Wait until you are in great shape to try anything like that (now that makes sense….).

But it's all turned around and wrong. I got a fitbit from a program at work, and I am getting a little more exercise than I realized. I have some cool fitness DVDs. I just started going to the gym, tentatively trying to learn to run, even though "can't, can't, can't" runs through my head. In my case, right here and right now, with my medication controlling my disabilities, I am trying to do "can" and pushing aside "won't." Because there is always a way for me to move. Always. Even if it's just getting out of bed when I'm too depressed, too fatigued, and doing a little stretching. I honestly think everything counts.

I think that when I look at my friends who work out and lift and do all kinds of cool things, I am living on won't street--"That will never be me." Well, why not? Maybe I'll look different, maybe I have to go super slow, but why not? Whose to say I can't, except myself?