Under a bushel.

When I first started running a few years ago (and before I had a treadmill), I did it at 5 in the morning.  Not because my mornings were so jam-packed I had to be up that early, but because running at 5 AM meant I’d be home before 6, or, more specifically, before the sun came up. 

I was under the belief that there would be something embarrasing about being seen running, something awful and repugnant about my jiggliness, my sweaty red face.  So, I’d run in the morning, in the dark, risking twisted ankles and probably a lot worse. 

Later, after I had the treadmill, I’d make sure the door to the workout room was closed when I was running and if my husband came in while I was chugging away, I’d get very upset.  Something about being seen like that made me incredibly uncomfortable.

I was ashamed of moving my body in a way that it was actually designed to move and felt I should hide, lest my movement repulse or offend.  My body.  Just being a body, out in the world, moving.  I thought it was shameful.

That same shame has kept me from rock-climbing (because of the spillage of ass over harness), has kept me from swimming (swimsuit! Yikes!), has made me unable to take yoga classes or self-defense classes, even makes me feel self-conscious waving in a short-sleeved shirt (what with the upper arm waving, too). 

I am tired of shame.  I am tired of thinking that my body when it’s just being a body is something I should hide. 

Before this summer is over, I’d like to do something to challenge that shame, something I haven’t been able to do in the past.  I’m ready to live my life out to the very edges of my body, sweaty red face be damned.