Work it Out

Middle school health class has taught me exercise releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy.  Well, to be fair to my good friend, the health teacher, I’ll admit it’s a bit more complex than that, but you get the idea.  I’ve never been one of those people who will claim to love working out, I’ve actually always kind of hated it.  To be real honest, if I could just eat the way I often do and suffer no consequences you wouldn’t catch me dead at a gym.  I started working out again a few months ago, less for body purposes and more for my mind.  At this point in my life, I’ll do anything I can to increase the happy-factor in my days.  And so, to the gym I go.

I took up kickboxing.  With the exception of a Spandex-clad Billy Blanks dvd in my parent’s living room as a teenager, I’ve never done it before.  I found a Groupon for a place near my house and decided to give it a whirl.  The first class kicked my ass but I really did like it.  It could have just been the endorphins at play but I enjoyed myself.  I don’t know if it was so much the working out that I enjoyed or the anonymity that I relished.  No one knew me there.  When I met the instructor I offered very little about myself other than it looked cool and I wanted to check it out.  Whenever the other women there talked I usually kept quiet, offering a smile or a little laugh to whatever they were talking about.  I wasn’t getting too invested and didn’t want to put myself in a position where any questions could be asked of me.

Often, for me lately, all roads lead back to Jack.  So any conversation always has the potential to go there, usually because I may bring him up.  But not there.  Though I’ve slowly begun making small talk, there I rarely even mention Kennedy.  You see if I mention that I have a daughter someone usually asks how old she is.  I tell them but then quickly shut the conversation down, hoping I give off body language that could convince people I’m really into the workout. 

The constant worry I have is that the next question would be, “Do you have any other kids?”  How do I answer?  Yes? Sort of? I did? Do I explain I had a son but he died and it’s been awful and I’m just hoping that punching things, sweating, and barely being able to breathe will make me feel better?  Not a gym-type conversation.  But really, truth be told, it’s that I don’t want anyone to know is because then it will be one more place where people will wonder if I’m okay.  They’ll feel the need to ask, and regardless what the answer is, I’ll feel the need to say something like, “I’m okay” or, “hanging in there”. 

So today we’re doing some floor work and the conversation turned to having babies, the various topics that go with that and suddenly I felt this irrational need to run out of there to my car, or pretend I had to puke in the bathroom, anything to avoid being looped into the conversation.  I just wasn’t confident that, today of all days- 5 months exactly after I lost part of my world, that I could nonchalantly answer anything that was asked of me.  I couldn’t breathe and if anyone noticed I probably looked absolutely nuts.  Luckily the trainer called time and we had to put our gloves back on and hit the bags again, no one talks then.

The problem isn’t that I don’t want to talk about Jack.  I love to say his name and see his face in my mind when it’s said out loud. It’s just that it’s nice to go somewhere that no one has any framework to make a comparison of who I was one year or even 6 months ago.  I’m just any other chick with a sweaty, red face trying to better herself in some way.  I get to take a break from being Tricia, grieving mama, and just be Tricia, girl with a jiggly belly determined to have a six-pack.  Okay, I’ll settle for a four-pack.