Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 36: idiot.

Scrolling through my phone's gallery, I checked the timestamp on the earliest progress picture. I was a month away from my one-year mark, and far from the physique I wanted. Sure, there was a bit of a difference between then and now, but looking in the mirror with last year's photo in hand, comparing the me I used to be with the me I was now, there was hardly a contrast.

I still looked thin.

Sighing, I grabbed the measuring tape, measurement journal, and jotted down the dreaded numbers. Bile threatened to rise from my flipping stomach as I checked and double checked to make sure I measured right. Any little bit would make me happier. It would make me feel like I wasn't sitting around doing nothing, and that my efforts to change were actually doing something. But that's why I hated this part so much, because I never saw the change I wanted to.

When I first started measuring, I did it maybe twice a month...nothing special, just keeping track of my marks. It take long for twice a month to become once a week, and then everyday. It didn't change anything, and nothing changed within a day, but there was this pulling inside of me that gave some sense of false hope, just enough, to lure me back to those numbered lines. It's a strange urge that's hard to put into words, and it's just as hard to understand it as it is to explain. It's like a drug to me, to repetitively weigh, measure, and analyze every part of myself, to feel that pull toward more and more work. When I resist those urges, I'm met with a slew of insults regurgitated from my mind. 

The worst part about being at war with your own mind, is that your enemy already has the upper hand. It already knows your biggest insecurities, your current struggles, your weaknesses, and it already knows the ins and outs of your moves against it. Every time I wanted to give up, there was this voice in my head that said the exact words I needed to hear; the exact words I feared. 

Maybe that's why I found myself back at the gym, renewing my membership out of pocket, and jumping right back into full swing of things. That, and my arms were shrinking. And it wasn't just in my mind, I had the written evidence to prove it. 

The dude at the desk looked confused. "You want to start another membership?" I nodded adamantly. "But you just cancelled it a few days ago." I nodded again, combing my mind for a dumb excuse. Lucky for me, it didn't fail to find one this time around. 

"I wasn't sure I'd be able to pay for it, but I realized I don't have to pay for several months, so..." I shrugged, "I guess I'll go month-by-month." 

He raised a brow, but nodded nonetheless. 

After an awkward sorting out with the guy, I was able to roam the gym freely, taking in the familiar scents, sights, and sounds, and reveling in the knowledge of knowing that nothing could hold me back now. 

~ 

Mind over matter is a BS concept. Believe me, it hurt like nobody's business the moment I picked up that bell bar and tried lifting it above my head. 

I can't give up. I know I can do this, I've worked through the pain before! 

Despite the self-encouraging words I recited in my mind like a mantra, my body couldn't handle lifting anything above my head. 

Seriously, it's not that hard!

It really isn't hard to lift your arms above your head, you just do it, but it isn't that simple when your body is physically working against you. Setting it back down after a failed attempt to lift it, I whipped my head left and right, checking to make sure no one was watching my pitiful state. I was ashamed enough as it was to be unable to pick up a light weight, I didn't need the pressure of others' gazes on me on top of that.