Who’s spotting who?

Remember this guy? Becuase I haven’t posted in, um, forever… I’ll do a quick recap.

Growing up I was the biggest loser. There were a few cool, older kids who made my life a living hell for the majority of my formative years so naturally I had a major crush on them both.

From twerpy, annoying neighbor, I moved straight to fat and angry. Not exactly what the cool kids are looking for in “arm candy” — not who you want to take to the prom, for sure.

Fast forward 12 years, a lot has changed. I moved back to the area, dropped a bunch of weight, calmed-the-fuck-down about a lot of stuff and generally ended up a way better person. But living in the same area in which I grew up, it’s natural that I’ll run across a number of characters from my past — one of the aforementioned cool kids included.

For months and months I saw him at the gym almost every single day. He said nothing. I assumed he was as aloof as he had been so many years before. Through the magic of the internets, I found him on Facebook and added him as a friend without saying a word. I knew he’d know my name, and lo and behold he accepted. But I didn’t know how to broach the whole “hey you see me every day and don’t say anything” subject. Until a thread of old neighborhood kids got going and I had my chance.

We are going to have a neighborhood reunion come Christmas, mostly so all of my old neighbors can show off their hot new wives/husbands and we laugh about all the ridculous shit we got into as kids. We had been emailing around about it for a few days. About 50 messages or so in, I was like – “Hey – so, you know I see you all the time at the gym, right?”

“Well, I thought I saw you once but I have tunnel vision at the gym.”

I didn’t bother reiterating that I see him… constantly. I just said I’d be sure to say hi next time I caught his eye. Two weeks later, I did. He actually saw me first as I came down the stairs and he stuck his pierced tongue out at me. I know I had a stupid grin on my face – I was about to talk to one of the hottest guys at the gym, a guy who hasn’t actually seen me for 12 years. (Thank GOD I didn’t wear my tube socks that day.)

I was shocked by a few things. His incredibly high voice, for one. His ugly earrings, too. But really I was shocked at how nice he was. He certainly didn’t “look” nice. He looked hard. He looked like a tough guy. But he wasn’t kidding. When he’s at the gym he is just in a zone. I could tell that I drifted in and out of his consciousness as I worked out around him.

We ended up a machine away from each other at some point. He was on the fly machine and I was on chest press. He looked up from the floor – his between set behavior – and asked… “Hey, Jane. Can you spot me?”

I looked at his stack – 250lbs. “Um – sure.” He wanted to do 6-8. And he looked like he could get it. I was merely, um, there for show. I hoped. In the end, I did spot him, 2 sets – 2 assisted reps. About my limit, really.

It was such a great full-circle feeling for me. I know that we should all be past high school at this point. Certainly past our childhood. But it wasn’t that easy for me. More and more I can see myself growing as a person, but the increments are so small that they are sometimes difficult to see while they are happening. It’s times like these where I see exactly how far I’ve come.

I spotted him at the gym. I spotted him IN the gym. It was a good feeling. And now I have a new gym-friend.