After several rigorous weeks of committed gym days and learning to get buff again with my ever-constant workout companion, Ryan, he has left me for sunshine and runs on the beach. He has gone back to Florida for an extended stay to look after his grandmother, but where does that leave me?
For starters, with a wealth of knowledge I didn’t have before, a whole lot of motivation and the confidence to go to the gym daily—by myself—like a big girl.
At first, once he was gone, I entered the gym feeling a bit shaky. Maybe I had been flouncing all over the place with Mr. Muscles by my side a little too confident. There was no machine I wouldn’t try, or weird workout maneuver I wouldn’t attempt if I was armed with my buff would-be personal trainer by my side.
Last week before he left he showed me how to use a machine we hadn’t used before. He went to get a drink of water and when he came back I was happily swinging my arm back and forth, thinking how easy this machine was. That is until Ryan scrutinized what I was doing.
“Am I doing it wrong?” I asked, knowing without a doubt that I was.
If I had lost a pound for every time I asked this at the gym with Ryan, I would be at my goal weight by now. He laughed, confirmed I was doing it wrong, and took away the handle—even now I don’t recall what this machine worked out, probably my fingers? My triceps? Shoulders? No, let’s stick with fingers. Anyway, he took away the handle which was attached to a wire pulley system and showed me as he slowly pulled it.
“I got it. Like a bow and arrow,” I said as I took the handle back and started to pull the wire across and around my chest. “Oh wow. That’s a lot harder. Wow, this really sucks,” I said now that I was doing it correctly.
So now, I know how to use that machine correctly—as does a middle-aged gent who was watching the whole exchange between Ryan and I and commented to me: “Well of course he makes it look easy, he’s the Hulk.” I nodded. Working out with the Hulk had its advantages and its drawbacks. Sometimes I looked like a giant imbecile trying to do something that Ryan made look effortless, like when he showed me what a dip was. I tried it and I’m certain I almost dislodged a shoulder blade while I gasped trying to pull all my body weight back up into the air somehow after first lowering it.
Ryan hasn’t even been gone a week and I have gone to the gym by myself four times and each time I have gotten a smidge more confident about using the machines I dub the “boy machines” as I only ever see men on them. Well, that’s not entirely true, sometimes there are girls using them but they are super fit and they too intimidate me, so they’re boy machines. And each day I have felt a little more of my self-reliance return without Ryan by my side.
I feel quite grateful that he stood by my me as long as he did, like a parent whose reluctant 5 year old is about to embark upon the first day of kindergarten and is petrified. The parent lovingly comes into the classroom and helps the child build blocks until she is doing it on her own, and then he slinks out while she learns how to tackle it. It’s like that. So thanks, Ryan. I couldn’t have made it to the boy machines and the dip aspirations without you.
-Cassandra