I joined a gym in [DETAIL: which month did this start? January?] and have gone three or four mornings a week since. The program is nothing clever: a push/pull/legs split off the r/fitness wiki, compound lifts first, a little more weight on the bar each session, the log kept in my phone's notes app like everyone else's.
The appeal turns out to be the structure more than the muscle. A morning with a session in it has a spine. I know what the first hour of the day is for before I'm awake enough to negotiate with it.
Beginner lifting is also a rigged game, in a good way. The internet calls it newbie gains: for the first several months the numbers go up almost no matter what you do. Squat five more pounds than last week, write it down, leave. Progress that reliable is rare anywhere else in life, and I've decided not to interrogate it.
What I'm not doing is becoming a gym person. No protein-powder opinions, no physique goals, no hour-long YouTube videos about optimal training frequency. The lifting is scaffolding. It holds a shape up while other things get built, and scaffolding comes down without anyone mourning it.
It may not stick. Routines of mine have dissolved before with less warning than this. But the bar doesn't care whether I identify with it, which at the moment is exactly the relationship I want with a hobby. I'll report back if the numbers stop going up, or if I stop showing up to move them.
— Lo