Safety

When I started this process 3 weeks ago, I didn't think I'd ever come to think of the gym as a "safe haven" of sorts.

Gyms are intimidating.  They usually smell weird.  They're full of muscley dudes and super fit ladies that snicker at the chunky girl trying to do leg presses, who doesn't even realize she has a 25# plate on one side and a 35# plate on the other.  What an idiot that chunky girl is!

Wrong.  Oh, so very wrong.

Gyms were intimidating.  Now this gym is familiar.  Also, it doesn't smell weird.

There are a lot of very muscular dudes and super fit ladies there.  But most of them weren't born that way.  They all started somewhere.  One will even come up to you and say, "Do you realize you have 10 pounds left on the right side than on the left?  The plates are such similar sizes it's hard to tell if you're in a hurry."  And will then STOP HIS WORKOUT to help you find the plate you need, and will bring it to you.  Said muscley dude will be impressed when he sits down on the chest press machine after you and realizes you are both using the same weight.

The reason I say the gym is my "safe haven" is because of what happened to me that made me enter the "Pay it Forward" contest in the first place.

I had started walking to and from work, as a baby step towards better health.  It was minimal, but it was SOMETHING.  My walks to work helped energize me before a long day of sitting in front of a computer, and the walk home was a good de-stresser.  

One day, as I was walking home, two assbags on the front porch of a crackhouse on Fair St began shouting at me.  It's important to note that I was on State St, which for those of you not familiar with my neighborhood, runs parallel to the street these guys were on and is a block away.  

"Go back to Burger King, fatty!" was the last thing I heard before I started crying and fuming.  Apparently, my appearance was so very offensive to these jerks that they felt the need to shout insults and slurs and profanity at me from an entire block away.  Across their yard, a parking lot, and two other yards.  I came home in tears and collapsed into my husband's arms.  Immediately he knew what happened, as unfortunately, this has happened to me before, on a bike ride in Sturgeon Bay.

Two jerks took away my morning energizer.  They took away my afternoon de-stresser.  They made me feel vulnerable and violated and awful.

My favorite route to and from work, and incidentally the safest route (the only direct route that doesn't go past the train tracks where there are always questionable creepers hanging out at all hours), has effectively been stolen from me.

I don't feel safe walking that way to work anymore, not because of any physical threats, but if those dudes have so few boundaries that they feel it's acceptable to verbally attack a complete stranger from a full city block away, I can't help but wonder what other boundaries they lack.

I feel safe at the gym.  Nobody there has ever said anything other than helpful, sweet things to me.  Even my trainer, who pushes me like crazy, is always helpful and nice.  There's no "get in your face and scream" techniques involved.  Thank GOD.

Nobody cares if I'm only walking on the treadmill while they're running.  Nobody cares that I'm only lifting 15lbs and they're lifting 45.  Nobody cares if my ass jiggles when I exercise.  Because we are all there, working on our goals at the same time.