Leg Warmers to Lululemon

Gym fashion, envy, and midlife musings

My recent birthday stirred up mixed feelings: gratitude for the years the Lord has given me, and a yearning for my lost youth. This post, written a while back, revisits that tension.

I am jogging on the treadmill like a geriatric hamster when Ponytail bounces past me. Not the same Ponytail I saw on the bike trail last month but close enough. This one is similarly blonde and perky, all sparkly-eyed and rosy-cheeked. She is the human equivalent of a golden retriever, while I am a basset hound.

Did I say I was jogging? Well… slight exaggeration. I’m walking because my running days are far behind me. Actually, walking is probably not the best word either. It’s more like a trudge. My stubby legs will only go so fast, and a knee replacement is probably in my future.

I’m glad I’m almost finished because I really don’t want to watch Ponytail work out.

A few weeks ago, I was trapped by another one. I had just started walking when she hopped on the machine next to me. As I was warming up, she began sprinting. The treadmill wailed as she raced uphill. She had it at a ridiculous incline, just a little bit of icing for my I am inadequate cake.

I thought, I am shallow and neurotic. Why do I care about a stranger’s workout?

There will always be a Ponytail somewhere. In fact, they’re everywhere. I see them at the gym in their leggings and sports bras, all toned abs and glistening skin. They’re pumping furiously in spin classes, doing lunges across the floor, or in the locker room taking selfies of their perfect figures.

One day I walked in front of one as she was taking her photo, and I almost apologized for interrupting her fabulousness.

It wasn’t always this way. Years ago, I would gallop on the treadmill in my fashionable leotard, tights and matching headband. Remember the ‘80s? Back then instead of yoga pants women wore bodysuits and leg warmers, i.e., Jamie Lee Curtis in Perfect. (Google it. Absurd get-up but she looked fantastic.)

During that time, I was an up-and-coming receptionist at an engineering company. I viewed the job as an entry point to my eventual career in management. Betty, a dour-middle-aged woman in accounting, was a long-term employee assigned to relieve me at lunch.

She was not friendly. In a passive-aggressive way, Betty made it clear she did not like me.

She would arrive late or sometimes not come until I called her, and then she’d sigh loudly. When she did show, she was stone-faced and silent, waves of hostility wafting off her like bad perfume. When I greeted her, she responded in monosyllables and rarely made eye contact.

I was single at the time and sometimes a date would pick me up for lunch. Betty wasn’t particularly welcoming to my visitors. A few of my boyfriends feared her. They’d shuffle nervously in the lobby, intimidated despite Betty’s pint-sized stature. She weighed about 95 pounds and probably needed a booster seat to drive.

Back then, I was also little scared of Betty. Scared and confused. I didn’t understand her hostility towards me, and I spent a lot of time analyzing and trying to ingratiate myself to her.

The passing of many years has given me a different perspective. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, and we weren’t even that different. She was an older woman doing her best—probably tired and feeling invisible—slogging along next to a chirpy 20-something upstart.

I have arrived at the same place. I was once Ponytail, but now I’m Betty.

Note: A version of this piece was previously published under a different pen name. These are my words, not AI.