Stop waiting to not look ridiculous

Publishing my blog ended up being a little more complicated than it originally seemed, both technically and emotionally.

My friend Adrianne and I talk a lot about something called "Imposter Syndrome". Wikipedia defines it as, "a concept describing high-achieving individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud."  I've struggled with Imposter Syndrome all of my life. In fact, I worked as an educational consultant earlier this year and had a nasty case of it.  Do I really have anything of value to offer? I wondered.  Are my ideas dumb and obvious?

In the case of this blogging project, after I let more people know I was doing it and added the subscribe option, I started to worry that this whole project was ridiculous and stupid and that my writing is horrible, trite, and a waste of everyone's time. I sent frantic texts to Allison and Adrianne asking if I should erase the whole thing and hope everyone I told forgot all about it.

Enter Day 4.

Day 4: 8 am Deep Water Aerobics

I wake up with just enough time to have some coffee and head toward Deep Water Aerobics with Abby. Socializing Man asks me where the rest of my crew is, and I tell him they have decided on a full day of sailing for today. He remarks that it's a beautiful day for sailing, and it is. Sunny and bright and starting to get just a little bit hot, although nowhere near the 90s the Boston area is experiencing.

Deep Water Aerobics is no joke, and Abby reminds us to use the water as resistance and that just because we worked out this morning we shouldn't go home and eat a bunch of hamburgers. Class ends and I head to the lockers to change for the main event of today: Boothbay Bootcamp.

Also Day 4: 9:15 am Boothbay Bootcamp

Boys are shooting hoops in the gym as I wait for Bootcamp to begin. I'm only slightly hesitant regarding this class, realizing that a Boothbay Harbor YMCA version of something with the name Bootcamp in it will likely not be as scary as it might be back home.

I introduce myself to Catherine, the instructor, who says that I've been here before, right? "Not this class," I tell her. I wonder if maybe I'm becoming a little bit of a fixture here at the Boothbay Harbor YMCA. Imagine that.

We need a lot of equipment for this class. There's a step aerobics platform, a mat, some weights, these discs to put on the floor to make it so your foot can slide, and a jump rope.

I am positive that I spent a lot of time as a child jumping rope. But as I watch Catherine dance and weave over the rope in what seems like triple-time, my jump rope snags on my ponytail or my sneakers. I finally get into a groove doing what I would call a Slow Gallup, but it's time to set the jump rope down.

We move on to what seems like an Exercise Smorgasbord. We are doing aerobics on and off the step, we are kickboxing, we are punching an invisible punching ball, and we are doing all of this while also sort of doing some tricky Jazzercise moves.  I am trying extra hard to look like Jackie Chan and Jane Fonda, but as we move into a really complicated aerobics combination suddenly it dawns on me exactly who I look like.

I look like Elaine Benes at the Company Party.

If you've never seen this episode of Seinfeld, Elaine brings George to a party, only to dance in a way that George later describes as "a full body dry heave set to music".

I start to laugh out loud as I embrace my Inner Elaine.

I am not getting this combo right and I do not care. It doesn't even matter. I am moving forward and I am moving backward and I am stepping onto this stepper and stepping off of it and I am punching the air and kicking my legs and that is what matters. I am here and I am doing this and I don't care if I look like Elaine.

Seinfeld fans will remember that Elaine gains a certain amount of fame for her dance. Kramer and Jerry are involved in a movie bootlegging scandal, Elaine tapes herself dancing over the bootlegged movie, and the tape of her dancing accidentally gets distributed at large. The episode ends with people on an NYC street following behind her copying her moves.

Maybe they were mocking her. That's what Wikipedia says, anyway, in its episode summary. Or maybe she was the inspiration for the thousands of Dance Like Nobody's Watching memes of today. I like to think it was the latter, and we are all Elaine, doing it our own way, but doing it anyway, no matter how ridiculous we look.

Class ends and I put away my equipment, thank Catherine, and drive home.

My husband and I grab the dog and go for a walk down to the beach. I'm still in my workout gear as I dive head first into the freezing cold Maine water.

I look ridiculous, and I know exactly what I am doing.