Confession Tuesday: The I Hate to Exercise & Age Edition

I love the line "Many underweight people *hate* summer"

Dear Reader,

It's been a week and a new yoga class since my last confession.  I confess yoga does more for my soul than most anything else.  It's a greater wellness than just wanting a flat stomach or a beach body, a term I hate as aren't all bodies beach bodies?  Our culture and it's crazy "if you look good on the outside, you must be okay on the inside mentality..."

I'm going on already, let's begin.  To the confessional--

I confess I hate exercise.  I hate anything I have to do "to exercise" - walking on a treadmill, lifting weights. anything called powerpump or powerlift.  Hate it.

However, if I was going mountain biking or taking my dog for a walk or to the beach, that's different.  If you say to me "let's go exercise," I say no.  If you say, "Let's go play tennis," I'm in.

I am cranky about anything I feel I have to do to "look better."

I am cranky that if you're a woman at some point in time your "size" or "body shape" wasn't right.  Even though I am highly amused (and maybe jealous) there was a time when women were considered "less than" for being well, less than (i.e. too skinny), still, it's such slap in the face to women that our self worth = a certain dress size.

Of course, that said, I would so much rather be in a time of curvy bodies than the underweight world.

One of the things I have most looked forward to with growing older is not feeling as if I have to have the perfect body and having lower standards to live up to.

Though truth be told, I never had the perfect body and when I did, I was too insecure and body negative to even know I did.  Yes, all those years I thought I "looked fat" I was of normal weight with perfect skin and perfect everything.  This is where youth is wasted on the young.

But here I am, somehow I crossed the 40's line, which doesn't make sense to me because I remember when 40 was *old* -- all those old 40 year olds and their jobs and kids.  Such a boring life and so so old, I thought.

And I've learned that I'm okay being me, even with no perfect skin or flat stomach.  I'll take a glass of wine and dessert over a "beach body" any day.

~

I confess if you were to ask me how old I feel, I'd say 27.

27 was the age I was when I quit my corporate life, moved out of city life and to this small town where I live today.

27 was when I realized I wasn't happy following the path of others, when I started wearing flowered cotton dress and dressing Northwest granola.

27 was the year I was so thankful to have time to write.  And I was gardening, constantly outside with my hands in the earth.

I confess I feel happier the older I get, which honestly, surprises me.

~

I confess I'm thinking about exercise because I've returned to taking yoga classes at my local gym. But yoga is doesn't feel like exercise because it also opens my mind.  I think smarter when I'm done with it.  Yoga, while helping the body, helps my mind more.

I confess sometimes I think I could sit my life away.  I seem to be most content under a blanket or in the sun napping.  Maybe I was a cat in a previous life.

I'm not sure.  And I'm not sure how any of this plays into creativity except that I find creative ways to move as well as creative ways to avoid moving.

And maybe I'm thinking of an overall wellness. Maybe I've learned that you have to work on the inside before you'll ever be happy with the outside.

Amen.

~ Kells


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