Retreading Old Ground Part II

I usually have a selective memory.

I choose not to remember a lot of events (and people) from high school, because why should I?

I remember all the terrible things my mother did to me, and none of the good things she did for me.

But when it comes to the last couple of years, I downright have a case of amnesia, that's for sure.

Now that I've lost 34 pounds (and counting), I almost have forgotten entirely what it felt like to be any heavier. It's like it's 2003 all over again.

With my recent reticence to commit to anything, this week I signed up for a 30-day membership to New York Sports Clubs, a gym I frequented from 1999-2003. The last time I joined, I reallocated the money I was spending on therapy to getting healthy and losing weight. Of course, it was four years before I lost any weight.

But returning to the NYSC on 49th and Broadway today, riding the familiar whir of the escalator to the second floor elevator bank, finger instinctively pointing to the 15th floor button in the elevator, my body responded automatically as though no time at all had passed.

But is it a good idea to forget all the bad things? Can you still learn from them without remembering them? When you block out the negativity - refusing to empower it with acknowledgment - aren't you making it somehow permissible?

Don't demons deserve a proper exorcism?

I have to admit, not everything was identical today upon my return to my gym of 10 years ago. The locker room seemed cleaner, the pool lanes smaller, the water less chlorinic. And I, more lithe, more endurant, less distracted.

Can a decade pass and life still remain unchanged? I, still single, still looking for work, still trying to lose weight... only moderately successful at one and no more successful at any of the others.

When things come full circle, what could possibly be next?

Related post: Retreading Old Ground

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