I was going to write a skincare post today but then I thought, I should really talk about something that moves me. (Of course, skincare also moves me. Ole Henriksen's moisturizers smell like orange creamsicles. That would move anybody.) And weight lifting is that absolute highlight for me. It's always the best part of my entire day. Which I guess makes me sound like a drug addict or something. But it's true.

     I cannot overstate how improbable this is for me. I took ballet and gymnastics as a little girl, and I've been surfing since I was eleven. So I have great balance and I am a strong swimmer. But apart from that I am about as athletic as a sea anemone. Owing to poor depth perception I have outrageously bad hand-eye coordination, and I hate competition and confrontation of all kinds except for explaining why BuzzFeed is bad for America. I was an awkward, gangly, bookish, gap-toothed towhead with a big vertical scar above each eyebrow and easily hurt feelings. (Ah, how little has changed. Except for the gap teeth.) So nobody wanted me on their dodgeball team in elementary school. I'm not kidding. I was always chosen last unless my best friend Cailend was team captain. By the same I was seven I had suffered two major concussions, had a fork stuck into my eye by my infant sister, and been hospitalized for fever seizures. I was a risk-averse kid. If anything spherical came hurtling towards me from anywhere, I ducked and called on the Holy Family (the Olsen twins).

     Then in middle school I developed Osgood-Schlatter syndrome, which is hilarious in itself because it's far more common among young boys. Basically, my patellar tendons hated me, and running or prolonged walking caused darting pain just below my knees. Despite written medical exemptions from both my pediatrician and a specialist, my PE teachers made me run the mile every other Friday anyway, as they lumbered behind the stragglers on their golf carts. So as you can imagine I grew to hate running.

     Then in college my freshman roommate was really into fitness. She would run almost every day, and lift weights almost every day. She ate more vegetables than anyone I had ever met. Her skin glowed. Her eyes shined. She usually handled stress a lot better than I did. All of this is also because she is the best person in the whole world and a gift from God, but it was only amplified, you know, by her exercising. It took two years of occasional and gentle peer pressure, but after I had my first significant bout of panic attacks, I asked the question that changed everything:
"Kayla, can I go to the gym with you?"

     She of course said yes, and the next day I followed her into our college rec center. She taught me how to use the rowing machine, a few free weights exercises, and told me which machines to use and which ones were a total waste of time ("that hip adductor thing," she said with a raised eyebrow, "is pointless"). That was where I started. I kept up with it for some of the summer, but I traveled a lot so it was spotty. This past year, my senior year of college, was when Kayla taught me how to do deadlifts and squats and lunges and the more serious stuff. She taught me to lift heavy and only do a few reps, and adjusted some of the moves to take pressure off my knees, which still give me trouble.

     At first, I didn't really notice a difference, but I mostly did it for my head. I liked the floaty feeling after a workout, and for the hour that it lasted, I knew I wouldn't have any panic attacks and I knew I would feel okay for a little bit, and when you have panic attacks, anything that makes you feel safe is invaluable. Then when I took a dance class I stood in front of the mirror in shorts and I noticed that my legs looked different. (I always worked out in sweats and we didn't own a full-length mirror so I had not seen myself in about five months. College dorms make preening difficult.) They were shapely and firm, and when I did plies my quads looked prominent and strong. My triceps actually rippled through port de bras, like I was a girl in a movie about a ballerina who secretly wants to join the crew team. My stomach was taut. I had, for the first time in my entire life, something that resembled an ass instead of a depressed pancake.

     And as I continued to lift heavier and heavier, I gained confidence in the gym. This is probably the most powerful thing of all; it's very gratifying to be able to go into the weight room full of men and lift just as heavy as some of them, proportional to respective body weights--without compromising my form and without grunting like a gorilla in labor. It feels good to be able to hold my own in there, mostly because I don't often feel like I can hold my own in very much. To feel like an athlete in my own right, even if I still cannot shoot pool or hit a baseball or run a four-minute mile, is to feel competent and strong.

     That's why I like weight lifting so much.

*I also feel that it's especially important for women, because resistance training increases bone density, thereby reducing the risk of osteoporosis. If you're a woman I think you should incorporate some weight lifting into your workouts for that reason alone.

Photo by Rocky Morgan. I don't really have one of me lifting weights because I feel preposterously silly taking gym selfies.