I've recently joined a gym.
It's not unheard of and in fact it's pretty common around this time of year.
The gym is very nice, spacious, not too expensive, is quite near my house and some of my friends are members too.
Despite this - on my first visit there something about it unsettled me.
It's not the fact that they have a 'young person's gym' though I find that quite disconcerting (why aren't they getting fit playing team sports like we used to). It's not even the fact that I have discovered that I am not nearly as fit as I thought I was. What has struck me as peculiar about this is how it seems to reflect my life at the moment.
The fact that I can barely decide what machine to get on seems to expose how indecisive I have become recently, constantly changing my mind, procrastinating and rearranging things, I seem to spend more time wondering what to do than doing it.
Then there's the fact that once I get on the chosen machine I seem to spend a large part of my time on it justifying the decision I've just made in my head. This is something I do in real life too. At an age where promotions, proposals and pregnancies are defining the life choices my peers have made I, in the absence of these things, have become used to defending my current position in life as the exact position that I always intended to be, regardless of whether it's true.
Finally, when I manage to get going on the chosen machine and I actually get to the point where I am too exhausted to care about whether it was the right decision or not I flip into 'Countdown' mode. This can be how long on the next machine, how long till the next gym visit, how long till my next deadline, how long till my next lie in...
And it hits me.
I am literally running on the treadmill of time.
Everything I do has become a series of 'I just need to get to X point in time then I can fulfill X ambition/desire' statements.
I am constantly sticking markers down in the road ahead as if when I arrive there the marker will turn into a welcome party with a balloons and a brass band. "You made it here in one piece - let's celebrate". Which would be nice, if it weren't entirely fictional.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely occasions which don't pass by without some sort of ceremonial rites of passage (usually alcoholic) but it just seems these days I am back on that road to the next three markers before I've had chance to let the last one pass.
I don't mind life being busy, I don't mind the relentless, exhausting pace of London life but my recent adventures in fitness have reminded me that sometimes being too wrapped in getting somewhere means you don't ever really get anywhere.
Getting back on the treadmill made me realise that I want to get off the treadmill. I want to learn how to enjoy and celebrate where I am right now and who I am here with.
They do say it's about the journey not the destination after all.
I'm pretty sure whoever said that wasn't trying to get back into their favourite skinny jeans at the time, but you never know, if my trip to the gym brought a metaphorical revelation for me...just maybe it did for them too.
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