~ Gym Days ~
Up at 5am, I’m keen to lose that weight,
as my body and my begin a great debate.
My body says don’t do it, lets lay a little longer,
but the image of a new me, makes my mind all the stronger.
Racing round the house to go flying out the door,
its time to find at the gym, what my trainer has in store.
Ten minutes on the treadmill, just to warm me up,
I think its getting better I no longer huff and puff.
Wednesday is the day I really find it hard,
the day I work those wobbly thighs I really must discard.
Oh, no! … Its time to do dreaded lunges once again,
too easy says my trainer as I’m told another ten.
I can’t help but question easy as I’m headed for the floor,
though I know my gorgeous new legs, my hubby will adore.
There’s that price paid in pain using the butt machine,
I suppose I should be thankful for less butt to be seen.
The squats I find them just as hard, but really love the challenge,
I don’t quite know why that is, I no longer try to fathom.
There is only one thing harder than the lunges or butt machine,
it’s Friday’s lateral raises, that make me want to scream.
Friday is my favourite day, to find out what’s in store,
I can’t wait to go on up those stairs, to get in through that door.
I look forward to each Friday and the challenge to my will,
ten minutes warming up again, a time to pace the treadmill.
A debate is going on again, between my body and my mind,
A new found strength within me, I thought I’d never find.
Pain that seems to feel so good, its just so hard to explain,
assurance in the knowing there is growth within the pain.
My arms no longer flap in the breeze as washing goes on the line,
wobbly thighs and my big belly, can stay in the past that’s fine.
Life is very different now, and changed in many ways,
I don’t think I could survive again without each of my gym days.
Written by Rebecca Rawson
Copyright © 2002
The air is cold with mist outside while I sit here this morning writing out this poem, its a mist left behind by the early morning rain that still drips from the gutters and trees, the first signs of winter just beginning … These were my favourite gym days, still I take time to reminisce on mornings just like this one.
Writing Gym Days I honestly believed the gym would be a constant in my life for many years to come.
What I never counted on was the fact that my body would betray me.
Neither did I believe that pushing through all the pain and illness as I did, to achieve all I did, would be the undoing of my new life, along with the body I had worked so hard to create. An undoing in a way that would never allow me to return to my gym days again, not to this point in my life anyway, try time and again as I did.
Sadness of what was aside, I may have my belly back through involuntary inactivity, my thighs may wobble once again and my arms flap in the breeze as washing goes on the line … But I now have strength of a different kind, one of endurance I thought I never would find.
