under pressure

They say "a little skipping won't kill you" ... "you can afford to take a day off" ... etc etc - so I'm wondering why I always feel so guilty when I skip out on the gym. Like today, for example. I woke up bright and early (well, 7:30 am is early in my books) in order to hitch a ride to the gym (save myself from a 10 minute walk in the cold) and work out for an hour or two. I got up, ate breakfast, packed my bag ... and then decided I didn't want to go. I had a legitimate reason: laundry. Afterall, Tuesday mornings are my only day off so if I don't do it today, I'll have to wear the same pair of socks for another week. Plus, I have an assignment due in about 6 hours. It's a lot bigger than I made it out to be in my head, so at some point soon I'm going to need to buckle down and do it.

But... it's now 11am and I don't think I've left my bed since re-entering it after breakfast. Besides discovering the world of tumblr, I haven't done a lot. In fact, I've done nothing. I still have to do three, if not four, loads of laundry and write two plays and a short write-up on my experience of it (weird, I know) ... and the worst part of it is, I skipped the gym in order to do those things. I would've been home from the gym over an hour ago and no worse off than I am right now.

I'm getting tired of having to force myself to go to the gym every. single. time. You'd think it would get easier! I mean, once I'm there, I actually do enjoy myself, as hard as that is to believe (for me, especially). I love to run - I never used to, but I do now. And weight lifting... well, it's not the funnest thing on the planet but it feels really good, so that's usually enough to get me through to the end of the routine.

I dunno... maybe it's just the cold weather. It makes me want to cuddle up in a blanket with hot chocolate and a good book and hibernate until spring. Or maybe it's the fact that my house is almost as cold as it is outside! My dad's core temperature has to be 20 degrees above the average person's! I don't think my feet have had a chance to defrost since September... It's getting to be unbearable.

...And now I'm just complaining...

So I'll get back to my original issue. Why do I feel this guilty about missing one day at the gym? Are my stubborn personality and unrealistically high expectations the only thing to blame in this situation? Or is it the fact that everywhere I look I see girls who look the way I want to? And I'm not referring to the Mary-Kate and Ashleys out there. I don't want to look sickly...

See, the thing is - I think, as an aspiring actor (which I still am, despite my one year hiatus), there's more pressure to look a certain way than there is for the average girl. The average girl wants to look 'thin' or whatever because she thinks that's what guys like. But she discovers eventually (I hope) that guys don't want that - most guys can appreciate real beauty in a real girl. An aspiring actor though - well, she knows how hard it is to look a certain way and how many sacrifices it takes to get there (and yes, she understands what airbrushing is); the aspiring actor even knows that her body is perfect just the way it is. But when the aspiring actor is competing with people like Mary-Kate and Ashley, Megan Fox and Natalie Portman, she definitely feels a bit of pressure to level out the playing field as much as possible.

Don't get me wrong - that's not the only reason why I work out, but it's definitely a major player as far as the guilty conscience goes. The main reason for working out is to be healthy. Which I am. I feel amazing these days. Now if only I could find a way to relax a little whenever I have to take a day off. Where do I find the valve that'll ease up on the pressure?

What's really ironic is that a 'campaign' that I worked on about a year ago is about to get into the hands of teenagers all over the States in the form of a magazine called sex, etc. Don't let the name throw you - it's a magazine that discusses all the issues teenagers have to deal with these days. And their focus for Winter 2010: Body Image.

Apparently it's still the fall (even though my frozen feet think otherwise), but when winter rolls around, you can check it out on their website.

I think I'm going to start doing some laundry... and maybe start and finish my assignment so I don't feel like today was a total waste...

Keep it real.