what you wouldn't learn about me just from my blog.

for all of 2013 i've worked part-time at a gym. a gym with a high quality manager and nice co-workers; low stress to not distract from school and actually lots of fun most of the time.

but a gym that pays so low i almost haven't been paid this low since i worked at hogi yogi when i was 16 and where else was i going to work. a gym that means mopping the floors twice a week and wiping other people's sweat off of treadmills. a gym where my co-workers are either exercise science majors or six years my junior. and then there's me. the artsy 25 year old that can't explain what she's doing there.

but a gym that was less than a mile away from where i lived (nearly no commute!!!!!!!!!!! there will never be enough exclamation points for that). a gym that was close enough to my husband i got to for sure see him halfway through almost every single shift and sometimes share lunch. a gym that offered steady hours that i could count on every week. so even though the pay was way too low and responsibilities often what felt like demeaning, i have made the choice, every day, to just keep working at a gym. and ashton kutcher can brag about how he never had a job that he was better than, but how easy is it for him to say from where he is now.

at first i got the job because i just needed a job and it took next to zero effort to obtain this job and my thinking was all, "i can do this job in my sleep and get a better job pretty easily." but then spring semester took over and i lost track of time. and then summer semester. and then wtf the first two weeks of fall semester are already behind me. and i will only be working at this gym for a few more weeks before we go on our trip to the pacific northwest and after that we will see how things pan out.

it's funny how things work out. work-wise, i will look back on this year as a low point, most likely. but life-wise, happiness-wise, relationship-wise, personal-growth-wise, i will look back on this year as exceptional.

even though it's only the end of summer and not the year, it feels like the end of an era. we moved out of that apartment ^^, the one that crafted who i am now and helped to remind me who i was during that (almost) year of the gym, and i am appropriately being overly melodramatic about the whole thing.

i'm sharing that selfie and the picture of that apartment because when i look back on this, the year of the gym, i want to remember that apartment. i want to remember those plants and that hardwood floor. i want to remember how i saw myself in it and where i saw myself going from there. i want to remember the low points and i want to remember the high points and how they worked intricately together to create the tapestry of my life.