Walk Like a Woman

“Oh no, my girl, you are not going to walk like that!” my personal trainer snaps.  “I don’t want to ever see you walking like that!”

I’m not so much walking as crawling across the gym floor.  I have just rolled off the Pilates reformer (which I have silently christened the de-former) and am scuttling like a crab toward the next instrument of torture.

“I will not have you walking like an old woman!” she barks.

But I am an old woman, I want to sass back.

“Head up!  Look eight to ten feet in front of you!”

I currently seem to be gazing at my kneecaps.

My trainer mumbles something about my lack of fortitude.  My fortitude, I want to cry, was crushed by the first 15 minutes of this little romp through hell.

“Doctors!” she spits out.  “My students come to them saying I can’t touch my toes anymore and the doctor says ‘You’re old.  You don’t have to touch your toes anymore.’”  She jabs a finger at me.  “There’s no reason you can’t touch your toes when you’re 90!”

I quickly reach down and touch my toes.  Son of a biscuit!  What else will she expect me to do when I’m 90?  Climb Mt. Everest?  Swim the English Channel?  Run a marathon?

I never had the fortitude to do any of those things in my 20s, let alone as I rapidly spiral toward 70.  These days, I’m mostly happy to be semi-upright and propelling myself in a more-or-less straight line.

I know better than to whine, though.  It only gives her more verbal fortitude. 

My 45 minutes of torture are finally over and I try not to groan as my feet touch solid ground.  I force myself to stand straight as each individual vertebrae spits bad words at me.

I look up to see my trainer’s next victim standing at the gym door.  He is maybe 60, with a beautiful full head of gray hair, blue-green eyes, and muscles that stretch his t-shirt tight.

Suddenly, I’m walking like a 20-year old.