I think I lost five pounds the first day I joined Equinox, but I'm pretty sure that's less due to working out on their fancy machines and more because of how high my heart rate skyrocketed when I saw the actual cost of a year-long membership. But, by that point, the pen was in my hand and I'd already begun signing a contract with much more physical confidence than I actually felt inside.
As someone who could probably qualify as a commitment-phobe -- I haven't had a serious boyfriend since I was nineteen and am just fine with that, thank you -- the thought of a contract that dedicated my life to this gym for the next year immediately gave me an internal anxiety attack. I think I began profusely sweating, but didn't have time to contemplate how gross that truly was because, within seconds, the lady who was sitting across from me in a leather chair was now asking for my credit card to finalize the process.
As I handed over my card, I was trying to pretend like I was someone who could financially and socially afford a gym as luxurious and expensive as Equinox, not someone who once fell asleep on the couch while eating and woke up face-first in a tiramisu.
Which, really, is sort of why I got myself into this situation in the first place.
The amount of money a person can spend on fitness in New York City is absurd. Everything is more expensive here -- literally, I pay the same exact amount of money for a one month membership at my yoga studio that my mother pays for four months at her gym in Massachusetts. But, because working out and living a healthy lifestyle is important to me/necessary to balance out the type of behavior that occurs on Barfly Thursday, I've tried a lot of different fitness programs since moving to the city a year ago.
At first, I belonged to ClassPass, a program that allowed me to go to different boutique-like studios up to three times a month and something I credit to helping me learn my surroundings in NYC because I would force myself to sign up for classes at studios whose locations I had never explored. But, after I fell deeply, deeply in love with my gay, married cycling instructor (and, after the ClassPass fee went up by, like, a lot), I gave up my membership in favor for going to a Bikram Yoga studio full-time.
I loved and still love practicing yoga, but also felt like I needed something more to keep me active, especially after the aforementioned tiramisu incident. So, during the summer, I began doing weights and cardio at the park across the street from my apartment building. I enjoyed working out next to Upper East Side residents walking their dogs and gossiping about their rich friends, but when the weather got cold, I moved the workouts into my apartment. It turns out my downstairs neighbor, Arthur, who already hates me because he thinks I am a Somalian drug lord, did not appreciate me doing multiple rounds of burpies at 7 a.m. (He expressed it so by banging violently on his ceiling). Assuming he was going to someday murder me if I continued this practice, I figured it would probably be easier to join a gym than be killed.
It turns out this was maybe a wrong assumption. There are an insane amount of choices for gyms in New York City and, if anyone knows me, I do not do well with too many options. (I refuse to join Pinterest because I know it would give me too much anxiety to not be able to organize absolutely everything I see. I think I have OCD, it's fine). Anyway, because of this, finding where I should go work on my fitness in NYC was exhausting and overwhelming, so much so to the point that I had almost decided to give up and take my chances of Arthur murdering me in my apartment mid-push-up.
After spending an entire day researching gyms and being largely unsuccessful, I was chatting about it with the guy I thought I was sort of dating, although I was as unaware that he was dating other people as he was that I write about him on the Internet.
Anyway, he told me that instead of focusing on all the different options, I should just try honing in on exactly what I wanted out of my future gym. Like, was it important to me to be a part of group workout classes or should I be looking for a location that had more access to free weights? He kept going on with more examples, but really, he didn't need to. As soon as he had said I needed to figure out exactly what I wanted from a gym, I had immediately known my answer.
I wanted it to be swaggy as hell.
The cool part about belonging to ClassPass was that I was able to go workout at really fancy gyms for a "reasonable-by-NYC-standards" price... the only downside to it was the cap of how many times a month I could go. Still, even with only being able to visit those places three times a month, I'd become hooked on the swaggy gym life. I was obsessed with the warm towels, the complimentary toiletries that were nicer than anything in my entire apartment and the straight-up beautiful people who worked at these luxurious places, though I'm using the term "worked" loosely because, every time I was there, it seemed like all those humans were actually just hanging out on the extremely comfortable chairs.
So, when the TIME office moved downtown into the same exact building as an Equinox gym, it felt a little bit like fate. The only problem was that while I wanted a fancy gym, I am definitely not fancy or rich enough to actually belong to one. But, depending on which way you look at it, I have an (un)fortunate habit of spending money I don't have on things I really, really need (read: want), which is why I am now writing this at the computer table from inside an Equinox gym.
Yeah. This place is so fancy they have an entire table just full of Macs.
At the gym.
Since joining Equinox last month, I have spent an unprecedented amount of time here. Usually, it is to work out -- I did, after all, originally want to join the gym so I could get super swole -- but sometimes, it's just to hang because I don't want to leave and remember that I am poor. Honestly, I have maybe showered twice in my own apartment since the day I signed that contract. (This is because the showers are so nice, it's unbelievable -- so much so to the point that I will make the 45 minute journey on the weekends just to shower here and put eucalyptus lotion from Kiehl's on my face).
I like hanging out here at Equinox because I enjoy thinking that someday, I will actually make enough money to rationalize this luxurious lifestyle and I'd like to fit in flawlessly when that happens. So, when I'm not spending my time here doing ab exercises and box jumps, I'm sitting in the "hangout" corner, writing and working on my chill.
But, to be completely honest, it's not really working.
The other day, I was in this exact same spot and feeling pretty damn great after showering and using an ungodly amount of eucalyptus lotion when a woman walked up the stairs looking slightly confused and approached me, asking if I worked here.
I was so flattered she thought I was one of the beautiful humans employed by Equinox that I fell out of my chair. (She realized at once that she had been mistaken).
Falling over, of course, is actually not an uncommon occurrence for me. The last time I fell out of my chair was very recently, when I was at work and watching Kanye West's live-stream of both his new fashion line and album, "The Life of Pablo." When I heard the line in one of his songs that says, "I need every bad bitch up in Equinox," I squealed, then immediately fell over, causing what would be defined as a slight commotion.
But, still -- in that moment, I have never been more thankful to have spent what could have been my life savings on a fancy gym membership.
Even if it means I can no longer afford to buy dessert, let alone fall asleep on top of it.