i’m not an athlete. or athletic. or even very fit. or at least that’s what i continue to tell myself.
i danced for maybe a year as a kid. i thought i was fabulous. i’m sure now that i wasn’t.
i did gymnastics for maybe a year. again i was pretty sure i was the most amazing gymnast. i’m positive i was not at all.
i ran track for 2 months. i could never figure out how to breathe.
i played softball for a season. i knew i sucked.
i played basketball for a season. that was torturous.
i swam competitively for 12 years. most of it was in summer league. i swam year round for a few years. i swam in high school briefly. i wasn’t very good. but i loved to swim.
i wasn’t (and still am not) very coordinated. i gained loads of weight very quickly in high school (that’s a different post for the future) and always had a very poor self image. i lost weight once i graduated college (mainly because i wasn’t on so many meds, because i didn’t have insurance…not a good weight loss system) but i always gained the weight back and thought of myself as a giant human being. then i was asked to be in my friend Kim’s wedding. we went shopping for bridesmaid dresses. i was miserable. miserable in my body, miserable in my head. i was going through a divorce and was not in a good place at all. we tried on dress after dress, nothing fit. nothing looked good. it was pretty disheartening. i believe we consoled me after the fittings with food. then kim suggested we start exercising. i thought, hmm..ok. i could lose a few pounds, look good in a dress and then go back to normal (fat) life. so we went to the ymca. we swam a few times, we went to aqua aerobics with the old ladies and then we went to this FIT class. i was pretty sure i was going to die during this first class. i never felt so fat, weak and stupid in my life. but afterwards in the locker room where i was deciding if i should call out of work and i had already made my mind up that i wouldn’t be returning to THAT class, a woman came over and introduced herself to me, “Hi, I’m Jane. I hope to see you again. It gets easier, I promise.” And that was it. I had made contact, well actually Jane had made contact, now I had to return, someone had noticed me. So I did. And it did get easier, somedays.
lizzie fortin 