I’m not a runner, and I don’t walk too much, but I do remember well my fondness of swimming…  actually, I loved swimming.  Laps upon laps I swam in high school and some in college, and the peace of the water, the sound of the bubbles against my ears as I exhaled, and the feeling of buoyancy that made my body feel as if moving through the water was nearly effortless.  These days, I’ve been out of the pool for so long, and the fact that I have little time to manage to arrange for swimming, or few choices of places I could go, I need to find and develop another love.  But how?

These days my inactivity of sitting at a computer all day at work is evident in my body.  My thighs don’t resemble the thighs of my college years… instead they are things I’d rather not look at, which prompts me to get dressed a little faster than others would.  That is just so sad.  My body is supposed to be a temple, yet in reality, I’ve let it become more like a lean to where rakes and lawnmowers would be stored…. a shed, and a dilapidated one at that, whose hinges creek and groan.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been half heartedly attempting to right the situation by getting on the treadmill to increase any amount of movement possible.  But again, it has been half hearted, as so many of the things I try to do are.  What is that about me?  Half effort?  I shouldn’t be this way, but the reality shows that I am.

I have heard before that it takes 21 days to make a habit and three days to break a habit, so if you want to exercise/walk, etc… do it for 21 days and you’ll have a habit… but if you skip three days, you’ll break a habit.  I can’t even get to 21 days, because I have too many three day breaks inbetween.  Hysterical I find it, and totally depressing too, honestly.

I don’t want to have my thighs and hind end look old… its not a vanity thing, because I don’t really care how they look to others, its me that I’m thinking about.  If I had to run a sprint if my life depended on it, I’d be breathing heavy after 10 steps and likely be giving out and giving up long before others would.  This saddens me.  I do have vanity about swimming though… I would love to swim now, if I was already in shape, or at least in better shape than I am now.  Bathing suits reveal all the things that usually I dress quickly to hide.  Not to mention that after swimming, the other things that hide the reality of myself need to be reapplied… like doing my make-up or styling my hair.  I remember that when I was in college, I used to complain about my body… if I knew then, what I know now… wow, that would be some insight.  I was in fantastic shape then, no cellulite, no labored breath when walking fast.  These days there is room for improvement, vast improvement.  I’ve fallen off the weight watchers wagon several times, there has got to be a better way.

I guess question I’m hunting after the answer is how to learn how to love exercise (walking or running, or whatever).   I hear quite often that exercise releases endorphins… I don’t know what that’s like.  I’m on a quest…. after a smooth thighier me, after a less poochy belly me.  I haven’t seen her in a long time… I let her disappear somewhere and I’m so sorry me for letting my old you me go.  I miss how much better my clothes fit on you, this new me seems physically older than she wants to be.  If I could swim everyday without someone seeing my ass, I would, well… that’s if I could figure out a way to have my hair be a wash and go.

These are some of the thoughts drifting through my mind today.  It’s been a long time since I’ve written here… I don’t know why… maybe coming here is hard because this is one of the places I become honest with myself, and document that honesty.