It was 2016 when I last went to Fort Washington Fitness, and I had discontinued my membership only because I had been let go from the law firm I’d worked at for 11 years, and I wanted to watch my money (that was the first and only job I’d had at that point in my life, and I’d started straight out of high school!) It had been the perfect little gym for me: not busy at all!

As I was sitting at a coffee shop last week, my mind wandered over to the biggest question on my mind: what was I going to do for fitness this fall and winter? For me, it’s already too cold to go for walks now (I have a low tolerance for cold temperatures, unfortunately). I needed walking in my life, though…so what was I goING TO DO?!?!?!?!

That’s when I remembered: why the heck don’t I just re-join Fort Washington Fitness? I have a good career and feel comfortable re-enrolling again, financially. That was the answer I needed! After having coffee, I drove over to the fitness center, giving myself a mental pep talk not to be nervous about re-joining a gym and to go ask about a 7 day guest pass to ease into it again. So I did!

This past week, I tried a few days out and quickly fell in love with it all over again. It turns out, I’ve missed going there! The treadmill and the elliptical are my go-to’s! When I go, I wear simple fitness clothes, as pictured above…but you bet your bottom dollar I still wear my hair just as I always do, decked out with colorful accessories! I gotta stay true to myself even at the gym, right?

In other news, I tried out some color combinations I typically don’t wear together this week, and I love the looks! I’m getting into colored tights; I just ordered a pair of yellow tights (helloooo ’70s) and deep fuschia. I’m excited to get them and create new outfits!

The last outfit makes me feel like a late ’80s career woman. But not a typical career – like an art career or something. Perhaps working at some hip art museum in West Berlin as an American, while spending my evenings checking out the nearest coffee shop or music store (to buy cassette tapes no less!) and going for late-night strolls to try to sneak peeks from a viewing platform along the Berlin Wall, eyeing the elusive communist East Berlin from a distance???? My curiosity is fierce. The East German border guards eye me suspiciously. What kind of capitalist weapon could she be holding in that huge hair?!?! Already, they’re on the phone with the Stasi, and soon even Erich Honecker himself will know about my threatening hairdo and eventually it’ll pass onto the Kremlin. Nena could have re-written the song 99 Red Balloons as, ‘massively huuuuge, bouffant ‘do goes by…” inciting Cold War tensions and all out nuclear war.

Yikes. I’m just going to stop right now because I could go on and on with my imagination. But yes, the last outfit makes me think of the 80’s, and apparently my alternate-universe life in the 80’s as an American living in West Berlin. Perhaps I am listening to too much Billy Idol still?

See ya next time!!! 💖