Why not?

Why not? Why don’t I go anymore? Why don’t I have the willpower to wake up in the morning, or make time in the evening or on weekends? Am I scared? Scared….of what? I don’t feel scared. That’s where I usually go when I feel scared about life. It always helps me pull my thoughts together, gather my energy and get my focus back. But now, I’m avoiding it at all costs. I search for reasons. No. Correction. I search for excuses. Then I justify to myself why I didn’t go. The worst part for me is that I don’t understand my own behavior. It doesn’t make sense. How can I make myself go to the gym again???

I mean, I’ve always loved going to the gym. Lifting weights makes me happy. I love the feel of iron in my hands. I like feeling sore the next day. I feel so much better, so much more confident, at harmony with myself and with the world around me.

I miss it all - the focus to get through a workout, the determination to get through a set, the discipline to get through a month. All of this – focus, determination, discipline – is missing from my life today. I’m writing about this hoping that that would let me understand myself and somehow get me back to the gym. Back to my haven.

Is it because this is a new gym? Am I worried that I’ll be judged? I know a lot about working out, but looking at me today, you’d never guess. Is that holding me back? Am I worried that I’ll fail? Or that I can’t lift as much as I used to? Or that I’m on the wrong side of the twenties and that my best lifting days are behind me? Maybe I'm worried that my deteriorating metabolism is going to make achieving results that much tougher?

Or am I buckling under the weight of my own expectations of the gym? What if the gym isn’t the mystical place it used to be? What if I no longer can claim that all of life’s problems seem to vanish after a workout? What if all I have to show for a workout is fatigue? Is that why I'm not going? Hmmm...I think so.