{Image via Google Images}

I totally fell off the Zumba wagon.

After getting excited about finally finding My Thing — some form of exercise I actually like — I was a faithful Zumba attendee. My friend and I went for months (and actually, she never stopped). I had my corner of the room where I could see the instructor well. When I began to feel better and more fit, motivation cam easily. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like I could move.

But.

Life gets in the way. There’s no real reason why I stopped. My weekly routine was thrown off following a death in the family, and then my motivation scattered like glitter in the wind. I was more likely to leave work and drown my anxieties in crocheting or wandering around than actually exercising, and I stopped making class a priority. My sister bought a Zumba DVD, and we dance to that occasionally, but exercising for 45 minutes once a week isn’t going to accomplish anything.

At a doctor’s visit last week, the nurse had me step on a scale. Totally routine, of course, but I was just there to get some cold medicine — and unprepared for that number. People say, “Oh, I didn’t realize how much weight I’d gained until I saw myself in photos” — and I certainly have cringed at the way I’ve looked recently.

But reality didn’t sink in until I saw that ugly number. The highest it’s ever, ever been.

I’m finally realizing I can make excuses or make things happen. I could sit around all day coming up with reasons why I’m too something to exercise — too tired, too busy, too tied-up, too overextended — but the truth is this: we make time for what matters.

I ended my month-long exercise dry spell by going to class on Thursday. It was hard. Any momentum I developed in the four months I went seemed to have evaporated, leaving me stiff and awkward. Some of the movements came back to me and a few of the routines were the same, but for the most part? It felt like starting over.

But maybe that’s a good thing.

Starting over, and starting again. Better this time.

It is time.