an open letter to my gym

Dear gym,

If you were thinking you haven’t seen me in a while, you’re right.  Please don’t take it personally.  It’s not you–it’s me.

You see, the school year has started again, which means that I have to go to work, and stay after school for meetings, and get dressed up and actually put on makeup in the morning.  I don’t have the liberty I had over the summer to go makeupless all day and take a shower whenever it is convenient.  Such lapses in personal hygiene might be frowned upon at my place of work.  So would leaving in the middle of the day to go work out at the gym.

So you see, my gym attendance time is limited to after-work hours.   And there are always so many things to be done after work: go grocery shopping, walk the dog, water the garden, cook dinner, check facebook, catch up on my reruns of “Friends.”  Priorities, gym.  Priorities.   And let’s face it: Once I am home at the end of the day, it would take a small army or a date with a handsome man to make me get up and leave again.  And neither of those have shown up at my door lately.  (Okay–or ever.)

Can you understand the obstacles I am facing?  And to give you fair warning, once the new season of “Glee” begins, you can pretty much write off ever seeing me on a Tuesday until some time after Christmas.  Sorry.  Gotta have my “Glee.”

To the personal trainer who always says “hey, stranger!” to try to guilt me into another personal training session: Thanks for the acknowledgment, but I am impervious to your guilt-tripping tactics.  I’ll see you again when the gym runs a promotion on the price of personal training sessions.

To my fellow treadmillers, elliptical machiners, and bicyclists: Yes, there has been one less person waiting in line with you for machines.  You are welcome.  Enjoy the 3 extra minutes you won’t have to wait.

To the guys in the weights area who could crush my head between their bicep and forearm: Please feel free to use the 30 pounds and lighter weights as much as you like.  I am sorry to have monopolized them for so long.  Oh, and when I return, please know that your attempts to impress me…don’t.

I promise I will come back soon, gym.  Just as soon as I adjust to the routine of the school year, or my pants start getting tighter, or I choose to abstain from a couple of hours of sleep each night.

Yup.  Soon.  Any day now…

Til then, fondly,

Allison