(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Well after tonight that's it: eight weeks of pilates classes, eight weeks of holding my pelvic floor and lower abdominal muscles to thirty percent, eight weeks of breathing out when doing the hardest part of the exercise when all you want to do is breathe in, eight weeks of holding positions called the Clam and the Cat, over.  I'm not gonna miss it. 

I really genuinely did think I'd sign up for more blocks and stick at it for longer, thought my core muscles really could do with being strengthened and that it would help my posture and back in the long run, but as I lay there week after week, for seven looong weeks, I just thought "Seriously, why bother?  I'm not enjoying this, why am I here??"  But the thing is (and I concluded this on my two minute walk home a few weeks ago so it's not exactly a deep thought), I don't think it's just pilates, I think it's any sport (or perhaps any thing?).  I'm definitely not a quitter, I just genuinely don't think I have that gene in me that makes me want or need to achieve something, or reach a goal.  Any goal.  I mean I get why folks play sport: to exercise, to lose weight, to socialise, to feel better about themselves, to get that buzz, that high, that sense of achievement, because they love it, couldn't imagine life without it or whatever...but for me, I just don't get it. 

I'm the sort of person that would walk half way up a hill and think "Hang on a second, what am I doing?".  And if I was there alone I'd have turned around and started back down the hill before I'd even reached doing.  Scrap that, I'd never even have thought about climbing the hill in the first place.  Don't get me wrong, there is usually a nice view at the top and it's good to finally get there, but I just never have the "Yes! We've done it.  What an achievement!" feeling about that sort of thing.  About anything maybe.  Which is why it's surprising that it took me four years, an engagement, a wedding, a baby, another pregnancy, a change to part-time status, an extention, a writing up period and an extention to the writing up period, to realise my Masters research was never going to get written up.  And I really don't mind.  The benefit of missing that particular gene is that you feel you've never missed out on anything, and in turn, that gives you a pretty satisfying life.  It's probably only truly realised by others that also miss that gene - everyone else just thinks of us as a lazy bum!

So, instead of attending my last pilates class tonight I'm going to the monthly Garioch* Heritage Society meeting.  I'll probably be the youngest one there by about thirty years, but I'd much rather be Gaddin Aboot the Garioch Wi The Picts than lying on the floor thinking about my posture!

* pronounced Geeree: the local area that Inverurie is at the heart of.