Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Crosswise in the Crosshairs.



Staring at the errant hair beneath my nose, I cannot help but wonder how I ended up here.

I know how I got here.

A friend with the very best intentions convinced me I would like it, and so here I am desperately trying to overcome the collateral damage that has threaded itself through my body and my psyche and fighting to ignore the gaping hole shot through my heart and the insecurity that suffocates me. My first night in the box was painful, at best, despite being in the company of familiar faces.

Because in the lost years I have changed. Irreversibly.

Caught between a mother’s guilt, a career that has no give and that singularity that is my daily existence, this box is my prison and my escape route from my own inadequacies. I’ve forced myself back, despite my discomfort, searching between the bars and the plates and the bands and the ropes for myself. I’ve fought back the tears listening to the cutting remarks played back in my mind and replayed all of the responses I hold back when I am reminded that I am alone and undesirable. I listen to the others joke and push each other on and I wonder when I will feel the same freedom. I struggle against fears I never had before. Where others take risks, I don’t. And the more I think about it, the more my chest seizes in the all-too-familiar vise of fear of falling with nothing to save me.

Yet, for the first time something deep inside and long forgotten pushes me back. I squeeze and wiggle myself into a Batman-esque layer of sports-bra-and-lycra that ensures all the body parts that I am displeased with stay put for the duration, and I walk blindly through the doors to find out what is on the pain and suffering menu for the evening.

I love it.

Staring at the hair as I force myself through the burpees that I despise and that are simply one of many indignities that the petite and perfectly sculpted owner-slash-coach is treating us to tonight, I am focused on one thought.

Are my nipples pointing in the same direction?

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