heavy

There is something about lifting heavy.

I am heavy. I feel my weight when I’m moving through this world, I feel my belly get in the way. I go to a circuit training class and when I do a push up or need to lift myself up a box I am aware of my heaviness.  It reminds me that I am strong. No one else is carrying this weight. My quads and my glutes carry my heavy body up flights of stairs.  My traps and shoulders push me off of the ground and my core, deeply embedded somewhere under my belly fat keeps me stable in planks. It is no small feat that I can move this heavy body on my own.

Being heavy brings me advantages.

Sometimes I am immoveable. I can plant my feet and bend my knees, get down low and not be pushed over. Why was I never a football player? I will never fly away.  I am grounded. I am solid.  Women are rarely ever portrayed this way.  Women in romantic comedies are whisps of human beings. All histrionics and lots of flowing hair sending its message, letting me know that I am wrong. My body is wrong.

I can hoist a 33 lb barbell from the rack to my station. Sometimes it feels like the barbell is twice my height and it can feel awkward but I never drop it. It’s the extra extra in the workout carrying and adding the cake weights to the bar.   I wrap my fingers around the metal and step under the bar and place it on my back.  When I stand up I feel its heaviness.  It’s ok. I am heavy too.  I’ve got this.

Whether it’s sitting on my upper back or I’m foisting it up over my head I feel it’s weight and I feel my heavy and we are meeting each other in the middle acknowledging each other’s heft.

I am not conquering anything when I lift.  I am not saying, look at me, look at me.

I am just reminding myself of what I’m capable of. 

I need to replenish the well every week.  Every week, everywhere I look, I’m reminded of what I do not look like, what I cannot do, who I am not.

I will never look like that in that dress.  I am not an agile ninja in a movie. I do not walk into a bar and hold court because I am the life of the party.

Then I go to the gym to pick up something heavy, hold it over my head and tell myself,

“Yeah, you got this.”

Fuck all that other bullshit.