Presents for the Self

By the end of the month, I’ll be 35.

I thought a lot about how I wanted to celebrate it, if I wanted to celebrate it, and, while I still don’t have a precise answer, I surely know that I’m not a person for big parties and events. I could have settled with a “35 things about me” kind of post here but, honestly, I wouldn’t know what to share.

Instead, while I was pondering the meaning of life and figure out how to fit in our society as a single, childfree woman, I ended up giving myself two presents: one for the body and one for the soul.

When I was in elementary school, my mom was worried that I wasn’t moving enough. I wasn’t interested in any sports and I was a lazy child in general. But then, after watching my friend’s ballet class one day, I decided that I wanted to do it. And so I did it. I studied ballet for 12 years, quitting only when University had become too demanding and my weight gain (due to hormonal medications) too painful to see in the mirror.

Several years and several weight shifts later, I found myself utterly bored with my consistent yoga practice. I tried dancing videos on Youtube, pilates videos, walks at the park on a daily basis, cardio yoga… nothing really gave me the spark. Don’t get me wrong, I still love yoga, it’s what prevented me from falling apart during the last few years when I had to experiment with several hormonal and ovaries issues, but I was feeling like it wasn’t enough for me anymore. My body wanted something more but everything felt like a chore. I had even started tracking my workouts and that was the cherry on top: oh my god, the chores!

This Summer, a colleague of mine (who’s around my age) got a very bad back strain that caused her to stay in bed for a month. She could only lie down or walk around the house and she’s a person with a gym membership and lots of enthusiasm on attending it! I freaked out. What if it happened to me too? What if I was doomed in bed for so many weeks? Having suffered of severe menstrual pain throughout my whole adulthood, I know a thing or two about being bedridden, I’m so susceptible about it that I can’t even read in bed for pleasure nowadays.

I had to do something, but I couldn’t figure out what. I started researching local gyms without any enthusiasm. Then one day I passed by a building with a Fitboxing Club advertisement and a little voice in my head said “Why not?”, followed immediately by “Who are you fooling? You have no strenght and you may end up caressing the punching bag and kicking like a dancer rather than a sport person”.

And so I went back and forth like that in my head for the entire Summer until I decided to give it a go at the beginning of Autumn and now I’m completely obsessed with it! I feel myself again in my body for the first time since high school probably, I don’t feel 35 at all (I was even asked what I’m studying at University by a girl at the punching bag next to mine, so it’s legit, guys). The first lesson I was absolutely terrified, it was the most out of my comfort zone thing I had ever done in my life, I was afraid of having to explain my background, my illnesses, my struggles. Instead, nobody gives a shit there. I was just advised by the instructor to use the 4kg weights (the fuck??) instead of the 6kg ones (go figure!) and that was it. I sweat my frustrations off, I punch and kick following the music, I struggle like anybody else there, I get home with a big smile on my face and, most importantly, I feel strong again in my body.

For years and years, I’ve shared daily life photos on Instagram. In the end, right before deleting my account, I was feeling the pressure of taking photos for the Likes, rather than passion. What used to be my creative outlet, had transformed into something literally “for the ‘gram”, frustrating and even sad, if you think about. My yearly photo folders went from 300+ photos to less than 50, with the lowest peak of 32 in 2020.

During the last couple of years though, I would have liked to take some photos here and there, as a creative outlet. However, the smartphone I own now (a rush buy on Amazon under 130,00€ after my older smartphone died all of a sudden and locked me out of my bank account) is so poor quality that sometimes photos are taken but simply disappear or turn out super blurred, even if they didn’t look blurred in the preview, or the camera can’t simply focus at all and I have to reboot the phone. So I got utterly frustrated and stopped taking photos at all.

Lately, I decided to try to ignore my stupid phone, pretend with myself to have a “vintage” camera or something and see how it goes. I have downloaded a new camera app, re-downloaded VSCO (why all the apps always have to become subscription based??) and promised myself to try taking more photos as a creative outlet for myself, not the Likes.

The present for the body has been a complete success, let’s see how the present for the soul will hold. For now I’m just excited about taking actions in making myself feel a bit more like myself again.