I won’t lie. I’m a wimp. I have this reputation with my family and friends for being frail, weak, and often physically ill.
While my friends in high school were practicing on the cheerleading, track, and Ultimate Frisbee teams, I was recovering from mono on the couch for months at a time. Every time I moved (just about once every 6 months after graduating high school) I counted on my father or a good Samaritan male off the street to maneuver all my furniture up the stairs and through the doorways while I begged them not to scratch the new chairs I bought and continued to feel like I was helping by organizing all the boxes. They know not to ask me to play paintball (“Sorry, I bruise too easily.”), run too fast during a racquetball match (“Am I actually supposed to move my legs from the floor?”) or take a bike ride in the middle of summer, which have on more than one occasion ended in vomiting on a stranger’s front lawn or passing out on the sidewalk even after drinking a liter or two of water.
And I’ve whined about all of it. I cry when I stub my toe, I complain about how much my arms hurt the day after carrying groceries home from a mile away, I make it known to everyone around me if I’m dehydrated, tired, or sunburned, and I call the doctor for every rash, fever, and sinus headache.
Then when I’m worried that I’m whining too much, I check the symptoms for hypochondriasis, as if I need to confirm another ailment. Maybe I am a hypochondriac. Or maybe I’m really just a huge wimp. I could even be dying faster than a 90-year-old grandmother right now. But it doesn’t matter, because I want to keep living life, like now. I’m sick of telling myself I’m not strong enough or tough enough. I’m sick of holding myself back. I’m sick of being sick.
And when did I come to this realization? Funny story.
I started going to the gym about two months ago. I didn’t just sign up for a gym membership, though. I signed up for additional sessions with a personal trainer for the next year and I committed to a healthy lifestyle. I knew that I had a heart condition (SVT) and anxiety that would try to convince me that I’m dying every time I had to catch my breath. But I also knew that I wanted to walk up a flight of stairs without panting, that I had a family history of breast cancer, diabetes, and brain aneurysms, and that I just didn’t want to be that whiny weak girl anymore.
The first few weeks I complained a lot. I complained about not being able to squat over the Port-a-potties at Bonnaroo for days after my first lower body workout. I gave my trainer the evil eye & a sad pouty face every time he pushed me harder than I thought I could handle. I even sat out one session that I paid for because I couldn’t get my heart rate to normalize.
I’m gradually getting stronger and stronger. Not just physically though, mentally too. Every time I push my physical limits further than I thought I could and don’t die, I realize that I’m not as frail as I thought. I used to be scared of the sessions with my trainer and now I see them as challenges. I used to leave the gym thinking I was so abnormal and unfit because I was so sore, and now not a day goes by that I don’t feel sore. I barely notice it anymore. I’ve accepted the soreness and the pain as part of feeling alive.
AND THEN, and this is the embarrassing part, I had a moment while watching the latest Twilight: Eclipse movie. Remember that part of the end of the movie where Bella is sitting in the grass with Edward? Edward tries to convince Bella that she’s not ready to become a vampire, but what Bella said really hit me. She explained how she had already gone through the most difficult part of her life when she thought she was going to die; after that she could handle anything. Very super-hero-like, right? Alright so maybe I didn’t have vampires hunting me down for the kill, but somehow, those silly movie-character lines hit me just at the right time in my life to make me believe one thing: I am strong, even if my mind tries to convince me I’m not.
