Jogging on a treadmill can either be mentally therapeutic or self destructive.
Ok, maybe not jogging. More like a fast walk. A slow jog. Slow motion run. However you view it, you’re still trapped in some weird time capsule. Nothing but you and that synthetic road ahead. We do whatever we can to avoid the boredom: ipods, magazines, television. Because let’s be honest, no one really likes spending an hour or so with their own thoughts. Of course, maybe it’s just me.
I didn’t want to go to the gym tonight.
There were a thousand other things I would rather have been doing. I’d much rather have been at Cold Stone Creamery eating some sort of big time chocolate concoction with hot fudge drizzled on top and a brownie on the side. Not to mention a long nap afterwards. I’d take a long nap over a workout any day. But I made the wise choice. The mature decision. Took the responsible option. I put on my ugly tennis shoes, grabbed my nifty-itty-bitty ipod shuffle and headed on over to the place I dread the most: The Gym. I know, I know, once you get started you’re glad you went. Blah blah blah blah. It helped that I was meeting a friend there. Hate to disappoint him. Accountability sure does suck.
I’m in the middle of listening to an audio book. Being my third visit to hell the gym this week, I’m several chapters in. This is also an incentive to go. Somehow walking around my house listening to an audio book doesn’t do it for me. There are too many other things to do and I have a hard time multi-tasking. I even have a hard time watching TV while cleaning the house. Thank God for Tivo. So I’ve decided that audio books are one way to get my chocolate-eating-butt into the gym.
Ear buds in place and my modern day walkman playing, I mentally nestled into the idea that I would be stuck there running in place for Lord knows how long. It’s different each time. Sometimes I give up earlier than I should. Sometimes I lose track of time and run longer than anticipated. I don’t ever do that on purpose. Believe me. I would rather have a Mac Truck run over my foot a few dozen times than stay at the gym a few unnecessary minutes longer.
Listening to the book tonight, my mind kept separating from the story line. Drifting off into la-la land. I finally hit the pause button because I was tired of rewinding it every few minutes to catch up on what I missed. My brain flipped through several subjects, but it decided to land on one in particular: my blogs.
“Why do I keep writing about the same topic over and over again?” I questioned as I increased the treadmill’s incline.
It seems most of my blogs are about being single.
I’m a well rounded gal (keep your gym puns to yourself, please). I have opinions on most everything and even if I don’t, I can B.S. my way through it pretty well. I may see things backwards than most, but hey, at least I see them.
Funny things happen to me everyday. Like just yesterday when my office security pass thingy fell out of my back pocket into the toilet AFTER I was finished and BEFORE I flushed. Scrubbing it with soap under hot water I thought, “I wonder if I’m the only person in the world who has ever washed their security pass with soap and water. I hope I’m not deactivating something important inside there.”
I can also be insightful. I generally am quite accurate on what type of person someone is. Sure, sometimes I’m way off base, but those times don’t count. I’m a deep feeler. I feel love deeply which scares the hell out of me. I can tap into other’s emotions quite easily. I’m sure this would give me plenty of blog material. I’m sure my friends won’t mind if I splash my assumption of their intimate feelings across my page. Names excluded to protect the guilty, of course.
There are so many different topics that I can choose to write about, but as I increased my treadmill’s speed I convinced myself that I was hanging onto this one topic way too many times. That continually expressing my sob stories of singleness was somehow giving forth the impression that I’m not whole. That I’m half. That I’m one reason shy of taking advantage of any two-for-one deal at the grocery store. That I’m somehow not complete by missing out on romantic pasta dinners at a fancy Italian restaurant.
Sure, I have my downs. Everyone does no matter what your marital status is. It’s called life. People who are married sometimes envy people who are single. Vise versa. Not too long ago someone said to me, “Becca, marriage isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be. It really can suck.” I replied, “I’m sure a bad marriage like yours does suck. This is why I don’t want a bad marriage.”
I’ve said a billion jillion times that I’m in no hurry to get into a bad marriage.
Being single gives me the chance to work hard on my issues so that – hopefully – I don’t have to force someone else to succumb to the growing pains. That is the job of my friends whether they want to or not. They’ve already signed up for it.
While wishing I had brought a water bottle to the gym, I realized that writing about my singleness is no different than those who write about their children. Or husbands. Or hobbies. Or lifestyles. It’s what I know. Who I am. What I live. A part of me.
I came home from the gym and collapsed on my couch. Although thankful I went, I still would rather have had chocolate. Thank God there’s none in the house. Still wondering about how various my blog topics are, I grabbed my laptop and began thumbing through my entries. Turns out I was wrong. I rarely look back at old blogs. I don’t even want to know how many times I’ve contradicted myself from blog to blog. Glancing back has reminded me of some really funny, interesting and crazy things that have happened. Things that have nothing to do with being single. My findings made me happy.
And then it hit me.
This blog of mine is not for some stranger living on the other side of the world. It’s not written for their entertainment. It’s not for my personal friends who I know read it. They can call me on the phone if they’re interested in catching up on my life. They don’t have to read it here.
This blog is for me. It’s a creative outlet that I enjoy and need. It’s a way for me to sort through this jumbled up mess inside my brain. It’s a way for me to express my backwards view of life. I’ve always considered writing as free therapy. Who cares how many paragraphs it is. It’ll end when the words stop coming through. And it will be on a topic that I feel needs to be expressed. No matter how repetitive.
And that’s all I gotta say about that.
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