One of the most physically agonizing tasks required of a woman in fitness is the removal of a sweaty sportsbra.
The uninitiated need to know it’s not as simple as unsnapping a back clasp, which looks challenging in 1980s teen sex comedies but never posed much of a challenge for Willa’s boyfriends, save for the first one, who in ninth grade fumbled valiantly until his efforts were interrupted by an older sister’s abrupt need to “look for something” in the basement.
Though for some women a simple back-clasping, even dainty sportsbra would suffice, Willa’s was like a GLOW wrestler, pinning her sizeable girls to her chest. There were multiple straps and hooks and Velcro, locking her down and eliminating the kind of bouncing that once inspired a guy at the gym to pull out his phone and attempt a surreptitious photo (the homicidal look on her face scared him off).
In the bathroom at FitFams, Willa attempted to extricate herself from a sweaty bra that she decided must be made of dragline spider silk, the world’s strongest bio-material, according to James, the human almanac. She pulled the band up to her collarbones, freeing her breasts but smashing them toward her ribs (not a good look). In the effort she had somehow twisted the back strap 10 times. It now dug into her skin above her shoulder blades.
She had to stop there to take a breath.
This was not the most opportune time for Willa to take stock of her body in the mirror, given that she looked like a trussed pork loin. But still she turned and examined. As a drop-in, last-minute student in Mase’s class earlier that morning, Willa had found herself envying the super-lean backs of the women around her. Willa’s was muscular and looked good in a strappy sundress, but when she wore a Vibranium bra that mashed her boobs like a car compactor flattens a Pontiac, she frequently ended up with frustrating flab-spillage above and below the back strap.
Willa took a deep breath and readied herself for the next attempt at removing this wet straightjacket. She had 10 minutes to make herself presentable before she was expected to greet and check in clients for the next class on the schedule.
She freed one arm so that now the bra had become a pageant sash made of boa constrictor. Her face and skin were red from the effort and annoyance. One last push, like in childbirth, got the bra over her head and enabled her to yank it off the other arm and throw it on the floor, victorious.
With a towel she’d brought from home, Willa wiped off the sweat from class and from this ordeal and steeled herself for the next challenge: putting on the clean sportsbra. Thankfully, because she was done working out for the day, this one was adorably soft and minimally supportive, and therefore required only a few grunts and contortions.
“You OK?” Mase asked, as she exited the bathroom, and it occurred to her that maybe he’d heard her fighting with her clothing and thought it was a struggle of another kind.
“Yup,” Willa said, heading to the reception desk. “Sportsbra troubles.”
As expected, he looked perplexed, but thankfully he didn’t have time to question her further because the clients for his next class had begun to stream in.
Among them was Clara, shivering in a gigantic sweatshirt despite the warm spring temperature, and Jamie.
“Hey,” Willa said to the coach. “I saw on Instagram that you went to CrossFit before I even woke up today. Impressive. You’re going for two workouts?”
Jamie sneezed.
“Yeah,” she said, sniffling. “I also think I have a sinus infection again. And my PT said I might have a stress fracture in my shin from running.”
“Oh, I had one of those,” Clara said.
Willa was not a fan of this kind of one-upmanship.
“Maybe you need a rest day?” Willa said carefully.
Jamie blew her nose while she seemed to be consider the idea.
Then Clara laughed. “Rest day? What’s that?”
“LOL, yeah,” Jamie said, not laughing at all. “I love the meme that says, ‘on rest day I wonder what the weights are doing.’”
“LOL,” Clara said, slipping into her FitFams feet and waddling into the studio.
Willa pulled Jamie aside and put a hand on her shoulder. Was it always this … pointy? “Seriously, are you OK?”
“Eh, it’s just congestion,” Jamie said. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, I mean, like, in general,” Willa said, trying to be delicate.
Jamie subtly dipped her shoulder to remove Willa’s hand. “Yeah, I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
And then she went into the studio and clipped into her machine.
Having received no helpful guidance or policies from corporate, Willa was at a loss for how best to deal with these two dwindling bodies. She’d Googled, “how to help a friend with an eating disorder” and encountered advice that mostly focused on what not to do: Don’t make ultimatums, don’t comment on appearance, don’t shame or blame or make the solution sound easy. Don’t use “I” statements. Don’t lose your patience. Don’t give up.
This was complicated for Willa for several reasons. There was, of course, the fact that this kind of confrontation was uncomfortable. Jamie and Clara might end up angry at her. The conversation could also be triggering for them, and for her; the more Willa looked at or talked about others’ bodies, the more harshly she judged her own. And then there was the small voice in her head that sounded like her Dad, saying that these people should just suck it up and stop wallowing.
If Willa were to be completely honest, she sometimes agreed with that little voice. She was an empath, for sure, but she was also the kind of person to roll her eyes when her brother-in-law refused to take his meds and then ended up in crisis — like, what did he expect would happen? She secretly had no patience for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t help themselves.
Sometimes she felt like soil. In the top layer, the humus, was the happy Willa who got invited to parties and was begged to regale everyone with details of that time she saw Britney Spears in a hotel gym. Under that, in the topsoil, was the insecure Willa, the one who told the story and carefully watched her friends’ faces to make sure she wasn’t going on too long or failing to entertain. Mixed in to the eluviation layer was the jealous Willa, the one who wished to look like other people and sometimes wished bad things upon them. The subsoil layer was anger and bitterness and impatience. On the regolith level, typically made of broken and unconsolidated material, was disregulated emotion and trauma and depression.
When she found herself ignoring phone calls from her depressed brother-in-law, or feeling frustrated with Clara and Jamie, or disgusted by her own weaknesses, she could feel the layers of soil eroding, their poisons seeping into her bedrock.
Was it just a matter of time before she became a catastrophic sinkhole?
The fight with the sports bra is one of the best things I’ve ever read 😂😂😂