Workout Wednesday: Leaving Home

The first ties have been severed.

I told the gym I work for that I am moving.

Oddly enough, I'd been dreading it more than anything.

Because while I cry every time another student finds out I'm leaving, and while telling the high school's principal this would be my final year teaching there made me sweat more than a 6-mile run, writing my letter of resignation to the gym was by far the hardest part about leaving this town so far.

It seems silly. Perhaps even a little inconsequential.

But the truth is, that gym is the one place I feel totally at peace.

It's a place where I can always know what's expected - a good workout, a smiling face, and the responsible use of exercise equipment.

It's a place where I'm not being judged solely by my appearance or my wittiness or my ability to talk down a raging teenager.

It's a place where I go when I'm tired, when I'm sick, when I'm healthy, when I'm anxious, when I need to escape the thoughts in my own head.

It's a place where just putting one foot in front of the other is rewarded, is smiled upon. Where others thank me for showing up and exercising with them. Where all I have to do is sweat and move and cheer on my fellow gym rats as we all reach toward one all-encompassing goal: Health.

In that gym, I get to have relationships with my clients that are tried and true.

They show up, week after week, and ask about my husband, my dogs, my house, my students. They give me everything they have for 45 minutes, an hour - lunging and squatting and jumping and pressing. They thank me even when I cause them pain. They hug me even when we're both so sweaty and spent that no one else even wants to look at us.

Other people don't even have relationships like that with their friends, their family members.

But I get the honor of not only cherishing that bond with almost-complete strangers, but also getting paid to do it.

Who else has the ability to say that about a job?

I do.

I have for the last eight years.

I am so blessed.

Because the gym has been my second home.

Heck, when my home starts to crumble or becomes packed up slowly box by box, the gym becomes my first home.

It's the place I run to. To run.

And to push and to lift and to spin and to kick and to punch and to step and to soak and to steam and to shower off the concerns of the week.

It's my place.

Others have bars, or restaurants, or bookstores, or coffee shops, or lofts set in the middle of cities where they meet with like-minded people and feel that peace wash over them like a soft blanket.

Others have libraries, or parks, or waterfronts, or condo timeshares where they feel that sense of home away from home.

But me?

I have the gym.

It's my place.

And I'm going to miss it terribly.

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Remember, please post any exercise-related questions you have below, and I'll be sure to answer them in an upcoming Workout Wednesday post!

Until then, Happy Exercising!