Musings from a Mother of 4 at a University Gym...

Kent State Basketball courts, running track and rock wall

Let's be honest.  I don't have the tight little body of an 18 year old.  Five pregnancies took care of that.  But I'd like to try.  So, when I went back to Kent State,  with my bazillions in tuition money came a "free" membership to the University gym.  Woohoo!!!  Its a state of the art facility, pools, atriums, massage rooms, zumba rooms, courts galore, elipticals, treadmills, weight rooms..... and my favorite hang out, the smoothie bar! 
But alas, as mentioned, I am not in the shape I was 10 years ago when I first walked into that gym. 

Exercising has come to mean something else entirely! 

It is an exercise in will-power not to grab my smoothie and walk back out the door!  Seriously. 

University gyms are not designed for the adult student to frequent.  Mirrors, mirrors and more mirrors.  To remind me exactly why I am there.  But to remind the cuties of just how cute they are.  Which they do.  And so do their friends.  "Those are cute shoes!"  "Your hair is so cute!"  "Your {teeny, tiny, itty, bitty} shorts are so cute!"  "You're cute!" "No, you are!"  Seriously. Stop.

Mirrors that make blending into the metalic machines impossible.  Because folks, in the free weight area, there is a room length mirror where all those guys the girls are trying to look cute for, can see everything that is going on in the girly eliptical and weight machiney area.

Not so good for a woman who doesn't particularly want to be seen, while she tries to sweat off an 8 year old, 6 year old, 4 year old and 2 year old. 

You know what though.  I'm cool with who I am now.  I may be bouncy in all the wrong places while the only thing that bounces on them is their pony tails, but I would not ever go back to the place where they are.

 The place where they are searching for someone to notice.  Someone to love them for the rest of their lives.  Someone who wants a future and not just one night.  God made me with a baby-birthing body.  I have a husband who has seen me at my very worst and he still keeps coming back for more.  And that is what I have and they don't.  I'm good here in my upper twenties.  I'll take it.  Little do those cuties know, as they give the old lady sideways glances that I'm not jealous.  Not one iota.  They do motivate me.  They keep me going just a few minutes longer. But more importantly,  motivate me to pray for their precious futures.

Stay tuned for more tales from the gym.  Oh they're good.  Title of smoothies, etiquette in locker rooms, and my new confidence swagger!