Today I’m reflecting on Thursdays in London. When I studied there, I had class every other weekday except Thursdays. Thursdays were days I could do whatever I wanted with my time.
On Thursdays, I could sleep as late as I wanted (though most Thursdays, that meant nothing because they’d test the fire alarm at around 8 or 9 in the morning, making for a very rude awakening). Typically, after rising I’d read until around noon, then go to the gym. I’d come home, have a snack, shower, then turn on whatever show I’d been watching at the time (if memory strikes me, I flipped back and forth between Dexter, One Tree Hill, and Chuck) while I prepared dinner. Sometimes I’d do homework, sometimes I’d go for a walk, once in a while I’d go explore the beautiful things that London had to offer.
I did the latter mostly on the weekends, though, spare some weeknights. I was a broken-hearted girl who needed alone time to repair her thoughts, and a part of that was just figuring out how to exist as a normal person without the one who had recently chewed me up and spat me out like a distasteful piece of meat. Sleep, exercise, eat, don’t think about it. It was a nice routine.
Today, though, in present 2019, There’s no London. There’s no parks that demand to be strolled through, no quiet hum of tourists visiting the wax museum across the street, no homework to be put off for just one more episode. It’s just a day off of work, courtesy of the Founding Fathers.
It’s approaching noon and I still haven’t gotten dressed for the gym yet. I made plans to meet a friend for dinner and I’ve decided to return to the “gym, then eat” routine I had and will go for my gym session right before our rendezvous. My gym routine at the moment calls for a leg workout followed by thirty minutes of cardio, but maybe I’ll shirk that in favor of the same two hour gym routine I did back then, with a full-body workout followed by an hour on a “Gazelle” machine. I never knew what to call them, but they were these cardio machines in my London school’s gym that moved like an elliptical and a stair master and an arc machine combined, but were none of those things. Using them made me look like a gazelle galavanting through an African plain though, so the name fit. We don’t have “Gazelle” machines at the gym I go to here, so I might just settle for an arc trainer or the elliptical anyway.
If it’s packed I don’t know what I’ll do. I like going to the gym before work to avoid the HUMANS.
I made an attempt to read “An Infinite View” last night, but I opened my Kindle to find a dwindling battery. In it’s place, my sister had lent me her copy of “Call Me By Your Name” the last time I was home, and she recently told me she’d like it back the next time we saw each other. With that in mind, I figured I may as well read it before I see her next (which, allegedly, is next weekend). I got probably a dozen pages in before sleep came over me, and then I decided to continue reading it this morning.
I finished it about half an hour ago. It hurt my heart. First love tends to do that. You sit there, knowing the ending, wishing the ending were different, that someone will bite the bullet and just fight for it. No one does.
I paused halfway through the book to check on Aaron and plug in my headphones for my workout later. He grumbled about me leaving bed so early without saying good morning (to my credit, I gave him a kiss on the forehead before slipping out to our reading nook). I not-so begrudgingly got back into bed to give him a kiss good morning and run my hands through his hair. His hair smelled sweet like marshmallows.
I think a lot about my choices, and what I’ll remember fifty years from now. The thoughts usually come on Saturdays, when I don’t want to get up and go to the gym. I think, “Fifty years from now, will I remember waking up and going for a workout, or will I remember rolling over to face him, he who wrapped his arms around me in his sleep and rather purposefully or subconsciously refuses to let me leave his loving grasp, and snuggling deeper into his chest?”
The winning thought is: Fifty years from now you could be dead, because you chose to stay in bed all those mornings instead of doing something good for your cardiovascular system. Sacrifice this morning to stay alive younger longer. You can start phoning in your health when the grandkids arrive.
This morning I got to sleep until I was ready to wake up (Aaron’s seven AM alarm for work, which sounds early, but is a reprieve from my traditional 4AM wake up call), then read until I finished my book. Now I get to sit here and write. Later I’ll go to the gym, then have some nice dinner with a lovely friend, who is still pursuing Whole30 and will probably tease me for quitting while staring lustfully at the granola in my smoothie bowl.
I wish every day was like this. No crack-of-dawn workouts, no 8 AM customer phone calls, hakuna matata. It’s a freaking tragedy that we don’t get to enjoy our youth while we still have it.
I’m not going to bemoan the loss of time or the rat race anymore. I’m going to go make myself some lunch and then do the dishes or fold my laundry. I’ll have to leave around 3 to get my full workout in before I go to dinner (and rinse off so I don’t look like a worn out, post work out mess in the restaurant).
For all my worry about my future, my weight, how much I read or don’t read, how much I miss London… at least I got to have this morning.