Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Ahhh, the buzz!

So, today is the day we close on the house.  I actually took today off, but to my surprise, there is actually nothing to be done today.  My sweetie and I went to the escrow company's office last week and signed all the paperwork, so there is nothing to sign today.  In fact, since possession doesn't happen until 9:00 pm tonight, we aren't even going to get the keys until tomorrow morning.  A little anticlimactic, I guess.

But, since I have a free day and nothing to do, I decided to get back into the swing of things and sign up for Pilates classes.  Since I moved to Seattle, I have taken only one Pilates lesson, and I fully intended to keep it up, but then I got the job, and I went on my honeymoon, and life happened.  Plus, Pilates is expensive, and it's even more expensive here than it was in New York, so I felt a little guilty about spending so much money on something just for me.  (BTW, if anyone ever tempts you to move to Seattle by saying the cost of living is lower than NYC, don't believe them.  It's complete BS.  By all means, come, for the space and the nature and the slower pace of life, but don't expect it will be cheaper)  So, after six months of taking Pilates classes two or three times a week, I have spent four months doing nothing.  But a few things conspired to finally make me do it:

1)  My watch.  I have a very nice watch, given to me by my dad on my college graduation.  It is supposed to wind itself from the movement of my wrist, and in NYC I never gave it a second thought.  In Seattle, it stops every night, and often needs to be reset as it slows down during the day.  This is annoying.  It is also scary: I move so little that my watch cannot stay wound.  Which led me to:

2)  The realization that I really do not walk anywhere any more.  I walked all over in NYC; I walked to and from work, I walked to the grocery store, I walked to restaurants, I walked to go shopping.  I thought I was a fairly lazy person, but simply by living in NYC, I walked.  Here: I walk about 25 seconds to my car in the morning.  I get to office and walk another 25 seconds to my desk.  Occasionally during the day I walk five seconds to and from the bathroom.  At lunchtime I walk for about 15-20 minutes, just to be out of the office.  That's it.  I've gone from walking at least an hour every day to walking 20 minutes if I force myself.  If I'm busy and don't take my lunchtime walk, we're talking two minutes of walking, if that.  No wonder suburbanites are obese.

3)  How physically trashed I was after working the graduation parties.  Yes, I was tired from lack of sleep, but I was also physically sore all over.  After the first 13-hour marathon, I could barely walk, my legs hurt so much.  After another week of these parties, my back hurt, my knees hurt, and my shoulders hurt (so much that even just wearing a bra was exhausting).  I just do not have any endurance any more.

4)  The realization that I have become reluctant to walk.  I was always lazy, but now I am extra lazy.  My sweetie wanted to go for a nice walk along the Burke-Gilman trail on Sunday and he had to bribe me with shopping first.  Once we did it, I enjoyed it very much, but he really did have to make me.  I didn't like that.

5)  My resistance to the walk on Sunday made me realize that I feel restless, but trapped.  The house, the job, everything, is making me just a bit anxious.  I want to do something, but there's nothing, really, to do.  I'm kind of in a holding pattern right now (though that will change when we finally close on the house!), and when I am stressed, I get very sluggish.  I want to hide in unconsciousness.  I sleep a lot, and I hate to make any effort to move.  But what I really need is to focus on something else and relax a bit.  Pilates is great for that.  When I was freaking out over the wedding and the move, Pilates was the one thing that calmed me.  For the hour of the class, and even a couple hours afterwards, I could forget about things and just take it easy.  That's worth a lot to me.

So, today, I took a private lesson.  And, having learned from my previous failure to follow up, I immediately signed up for a group class session this weekend and made an appointment for another private lesson next week.  And, let me tell you, I loved it.  I focused on nothing the whole hour but what I was doing with my body (one of my instructors in NYC referred to Pilates as "the thinking man's exercise" because you really think about what every muscle is doing and when; there's no running on automatic in Pilates!), and when I was done, I felt that buzz, that energizing lift that I had forgotten about.  I am sooooo happy I did this!

Honestly, Pilates is not aerobic, so I don't know that this will solve #1 or #2, but I think it will totally help me with #3, #4 and #5.  And just getting in the mindset of exercise will help a lot, I know.  

Plus, I really want my abs back!

1 comment:

Squirrelette said...

Woohoo! You go missy! FYI - Upon seeing some of the wedding pix, a friend said, "Are you SURE that dress wasn't too BIG on the bride?" --> pilates are your friend indeed :-)