Posing at the Gym

At the local "Y", I have found it enjoyable to exercise in an environment free from the type of nonsense I experience at the university gym. I have been to this meet-market a couple of times, and I realize just how much I don't fit in to the "young" scene anymore. (Not that I ever did, being that I was a geek in H.S. and went to the weight room to sit around talking till the teacher came in for his yearly inspection - prompting those reclining on the sit-up boards to jerk heavily upward while huffing, "a hunderd and one! . . .")
You pick up a weight, say, a twenty-pounder, and some big mountain comes over and snickers at you while hefting half the room's weight. You set the machine to seventy pounds, and when you're done some super-dude comes over and sticks the pin under the machine and hurls it through the ceiling 25 times - grunting like he's nailing a manatee!
At my favorite "Y", the folks are older, near or after retirement age. I don't feel their comparative gazes. They are lifting wisely, not overdoing it, thinking of the damage they could do if they got cocky. I like these people. They stop to talk to each other about this and that, complain about their daughter's choice of husband, moan about their creaking joints. I fit right in.
Sometimes getting older isn't all that bad. I am no where near old, but every day I see that eventually, I could, if I'm lucky, end up like some of these nice folks. Lifting my twenty pounds and being satisfied with it.
"The wise man does not compete; therefore, no one can compete with him."

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