All Of Our Shoulds

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I pulled at my sweatshirt attempting to cover my exposed belly button while my physical therapist stood over me. I nodded my head when he addressed me directly, but my eyes kept reverting back to my leg lying bare on the table. Weeks had passed since my ACL surgery, but the stitches scattered around my knee still looked angry.

“I have a new exercise for you to try today.” He said while helping me up from the table.

I followed him across the room where he placed a band connected to a cable around my recovering leg. Regaining strength in my quadricep was essential after being unable to use it for so long. Although, some of these exercises felt made up, or as though they weren’t really doing anything. Sometimes it wasn’t until mid-conversation that we realized I was using the wrong one entirely. Oops.

Up until this past year, exercise had been a consistent part of my everyday routine. I’ve been a member of multiple gyms, fitness studios, and on-demand programs. I’ve made chalky protein shakes and choked down dry chicken breasts while dreaming of pizza. I’ve posted before and after photos in the name of ‘progress,’ but now know they were simply a cheap flex of my ego.

All that being said - I can spot the difference between feeling my muscles burn as they work to become stronger, vs. the uncomfortable strain of doing an exercise incorrectly.

“I don’t think I’m feeling this in the right spot,” I confessed as I removed the band from around my leg.

I felt the tension from the cable directly targeting my shinbone rather than my thigh. It wasn’t inherently painful, but also not helpful toward my goal.

“Hmm, well you’re doing the exercise correctly,” he said crouching down to be eye level with my knee. “Try it one more time.”

When I did so, he nodded his head slightly while running two fingers along my quad.

“Yeah, I can feel your muscle contracting where it should be. You’re good.”

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When I finished physical therapy that day, something slightly frustrating occurred to me. Misplaced feelings have been a theme in my life, and not exclusive to just exercise. So often I’ve wondered how I could travel the exact same route as the person next to me, and still, end up somewhere else entirely. Or in this case, go through the correct motion, just to feel it in the wrong place.

Another prime example of this occurred back in college after I joined a sorority. For those who aren’t familiar, after finding out which one accepts you, everyone gathers at their designated house to celebrate on the lawn. Music plays as the girls dance and rejoice in ways I imagine a country might after finding out the war was over. Although, looking back the only thing I remember was making up excuses to use the bathroom.

While standing at the center of this celebration, I felt as though I watched through a glass barrier. What was I missing? Why hadn’t my Kool-Aid kicked in yet? Overtly aware of my own body, I attempted to sway and twirl with the same enthusiasm as everyone else. But each movement felt increasingly foreign, and then as if they no longer belonged to me at all. Scanning the crowd, I searched for fellow lost eyes like mine, but everyone seemed to be under the same spell.

Once I made an escape to the bathroom, I was joined by my unsolicited reflection in the mirror. Makeup had creased around my mouth where a smile had been, and flecks of glitter clung to the dewy parts of my neck. The white dress I had borrowed from my roommate now had a visible hole above the collarbone. No doubt from where the girl that called everyone, ‘babe!’ stuck an owl-shaped pin in it. I looked the part, and somehow that made it even more isolating.

That’s when I heard a knock at the door.

“One second! I’m just texting my mom!” I replied as cheerfully as I could muster through the onset of tears.

I didn’t understand. How could I already feel on the outside of something I just stepped into? Driven by an obsession to finally belong somewhere, anywhere, I suppose the suspension of disbelief came easy. My acceptance was their stamp of approval, and at the very least, should have felt relieving, right? Wrong. Instead, I felt like Dorothy after discovering the “Wizard” was nothing more than a man behind a curtain.

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How I’m supposed to feel, versus how I actually feel, often creates the largest conflict in my head. There is no world where I belonged in a sorority. I’m far too cynical and I really hate being told what to do. However, that isn’t entirely the point. During that season of my life, it was simply the host for something I thought I wanted. Something I imagined would bring me one step closer to happiness, but of course, it didn’t.

Years later - I’ve grown used to these figurative sororities, as they’ve continued to linger on any path I’ve ever ventured. Embodying every instance where I’ve wanted, and then achieved something that let me down. Manifesting all the milestones I’ve jumped, leaped, and skipped over, only to remain in this unreachable place. I’ve always imagined how strong, and palpable everything must taste at the ‘right’ table. So why do I continue starving at the wrong one?

I’m sick of every facile statement that ever preached the notion, ‘when you know, you know!’ I’ve found nothing in life is that simple, and sometimes you must find out the hard way. Like that summer night at the lake, when the wide-eyed woman across the table begins poking and prodding around in your brain. Of course, you won’t realize that her interest in you is calculated, or that your unfiltered enthusiasm will later be used against you.

This table looked pretty on the outside, disguised from the fruitless conversations and cookie-cutter subjection lingering just below the surface. No one informed you of the required prerequisites you had to have in order to pull up a chair. No one informed you that the women at this table must shrink. So, later when you overhear their whispers that mock and belittle you, don’t cry. Instead, listen to your mom, and go home.

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Now - what is the correspondence between exercise, joining a sorority, or finding the right table? Maybe there isn’t one, but we all have a preconceived idea of what each is supposed to feel like. (They’re placeholders, after all, so substitute as desired!) The problem then arises when how we truly feel, ceases to align with the vision we had before.

For a while, I contemplated if I was a sociopath and lacked the ability to feel normal emotions. But I cry a lot, so I’ve knocked this as a possibility. I also considered that perhaps I have ‘writer’s curse,’ which is the never-ending torture of an idea. This one may still be true, but I think there’s more to it than that.

Cheryl Strayed once said: “Pay no mind to the vision that the committee made up. You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have a moral obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding.”

Oftentimes we draw from the same deck, repeat the same exercise, join the same club, or even sit at the same table as the person next to us, under the false presumption that we’re playing the same game. What they don’t tell us, and what I imagine only comes with time and age, is that ‘winning,’ or getting it ‘right,’ is entirely biased. It’s a melting pot of your favorite ingredients because there are no recipes. After all, you’re the only one who has to taste it.