Growing up in my house, there wasn’t a lot in motion. And what was in motion was usually on a screen, either flickering on a television or behind the glowing monitors of a computer. The bodies inside of the house were immobile, perched in front of these screens and enrapt by what they portrayed. I have memories of my father caught up in decades old game shows, bathed in the warmth of a gin buzz and numb to the world. Or my sister deep into a multi-day video game binge, sitting in front of empty coffee cups in an unwashed pajama set. Or my mom sitting pants less in her night shirt watching MTV and shaking her head at “young people today” as she watched them intently.

What my family taught me indirectly but clearly as a child was that the world was better digested when it was curated and observed from a distance, behind the safety of a screen. No one in my family played sports, and the concept was alien to me.

I grew up sedentary and stayed that way from most of my adolescence and adulthood. I have a distinctive memory of finding exercise, and effort in general, “embarrassing”. From age 15 until just recently, I only remember pushing myself in exercise once. I was in high school and had just failed the one-mile run. As a consequence, I had to do it again. Because I was in the remedial group, it was only me and a couple of other flunkies on the track that day. Maybe I felt safe because there were fewer people there to see me, or maybe I just knew that I didn’t want to have to do this mile again, but that day I ran my heart out. Not literally, though it sure felt like it at times. And I passed! I was red-faced, heaving, and sweaty, but I passed.

I remember feeling like I was on a high post-run. I was genuinely thrilled with myself for being able to put forth the kind of effort that I had never been able to before. I remember I came into the gymnasium post run where I saw my new, cool European exchange student friend. She had always been nice to me before, so I excitedly walked up to her to tell her I passed my second attempt at the mile. She looked at me with utter repulsion and the only words she uttered were, “Why are you so red?”

My assumptions were confirmed that day – effort was embarrassing. And kind of gross. Meaning it was something to be avoided at all costs.

And I lived this way until recently.

Now I am in my 30s, in a dead-end shitty job. All of the people who told me that effort was embarrassing and unacceptable for me are still in my life, kind of. They check in passively when it suits them. But over the decades I have learned both that there will always be something for other people to disapprove of, and that the life I was living of sedentary consumption was one that I had inherited and was welcome to discard. So, I said screw it and have started to run. When I come home and look in the mirror, I am red-faced and sweating with frizzy hair sticking out from over my headband. But when I come home alone there is no one to mock my pace, my new exercise, or the way I look. I am free and I feel fantastic.