I did something I swore I would never do this week. And I did it twice. I wrote a face book status update that proclaimed my faux pas so there is no excuse that I didn’t realise I was doing it, or that they just sort of slipped. I wore my gym tights outside the gym AND I was seen in public.
It’s something that I have said from the beginning. The beginning of the tight wearing phase. Let’s call them the late 00s. (That no name period that starts somewhere after 2008) Tights are not pants and should never be seen in public as such. Tights are an accessory. They work like opaque stockings and you’d never wear anything that shows the sewn crutch in a pair of opaque stockings would you? I think not, and yet this week, I did it twice.
Let me set the context for you, because I think it’s important. It justifies why I was in them and why I somehow considered it appropriate to keep them on. I have embarked on a new fitness regime. I call it ‘fitness’ and not a ‘getting skinny’ regime because a friend of mine pointed out that skinny is not exactly what I am after. I will never be skinny. I will never be a size 10, I simply wasn’t made that way.
I do want to get fitter. I want to be able to do all of the things I want without the instant sheer panic that sometimes overcomes you in very mundane, everyday situations. The panic at the stairs when the elevator won’t go, being on holidays somewhere exotic and breaking into a sweat about thinking how to get into a hammock, catching a small boat across the river, having to have someone adjust something before it’s your turn, waiting for the airline hostess to see that you need a seat belt extension, the list is endless.
I now get up at 6am, put on my tights and extremely baggy t-shirt and I head to the local Snap Fitness down the road. I push myself on a bike, a treadmill, a cross trainer and maybe some weights for about forty-five minutes all in the name of being ‘fitter.’ Unlike the skinny girls of the world who wear gym tights topped with a tight racer back, fluro pink singlet, the BFK wearers of the world, have to wear very big supportive undies to hold in the wobbly bits, tights to stop the chafing and a very large t-shirt that covers all of the bits that roll, move, jump and jiggle when we decide to do something that involves faster movement. After a forty-five minute session of pain, sweat and hopefully singing that happens in my head, the usual plan is to go straight home, shower and dress in an outfit more suitable for my body type and public consumption.
Last week some part of my brain flipped a switch. I stood in front of the gym mirror and looked at myself in my gym attire. Sneakers, bonds tights and large swinging orange t-shirt. I saw the sweat running from hairline and felt the wet patch under my boobs. (Another much fitter friend once said to me that you weren’t ever really working until you got boob sweat) I had to get one thing. I had to get one thing from Coles. One thing. It was going to be quick. In, out and back in the car. And at first it was. Into Coles, grocery item purchased and in the car. It was in the car that the balls to go out in public struck.
RACQ. One job at Indooroopilly. I’d been meaning to get it done and I knew if I went home the chances of me heading over that way were nil. So I went. In sneakers, tights and with sweat marks. I justified the attire by telling myself, I was at the gym. It’s ok for people to know you are doing something about your fitness. You should be proud that you’re moving, you’re doing something to make yourself better. You are lapping people on the couch woman! Just go to RACQ. So I did. The world didn’t end, people didn’t stare, comment or point. The lady at RACQ served me with relative friendliness and I met a friend for a coffee all in tights.
It was in the car on the way home that I realised that other people actually aren’t bothered about my arse, my thighs or my sweat marks. They are so busy worried that they are wearing their bed socks, forgot to change their singlet, have two different pairs of earrings in, have been wearing the same pants for three days that my fashion attire in RACQ Indooroopilly is irrelevant. I am sure there are people who looked at me and did the eye brow raise and said ‘Oh my’ but I didn’t hear them. I had earned those sweat marks, I had earned those tights and while I don’t yet look anything like the girls with bouncing, blonde ponytails who run on the treadmill beside my loping scramble, I earned the right to be there just as much as they did. Tights and all.
life in big frilly knickers 