I'm a survivor. I'm not gon give up.

When you go to the gym regularly, there are some people you start to see over and over. Of course there are the muscle heads that don't leave the spot by the free weight right in front of the mirror for fear that their muscles will deflate if they stop looking at them. There are the really skinny girls on the elliptical machines, trying desperately to get back to their birth weight (what they weighed when they were born). There are the cross-trainers, who are all over the place as if they are on a workout scavenger hunt. And then there's the little old lady. She's there in the afternoons and walks on the track. Even for the walking lane she's slow. She's hunched over as she shuffles her feet. I believe she's carrying the first Sony Walkman ever sold. It looks like she can pass out from exhaustion at any minute.

At first, I feel really bad for her. But then I realize that I shouldn't feel bad for her at all. I should admire her. She's at the gym several times a week, surrounded by much younger people whizzing past her on the track. Yet, she's doing it her way. And she's exercising, which is much more than what more people do just by itself. I hope that when I get to be 80 and hunched over that I still have the spunk to be at the gym regularly, shuffling my feet along to the tunes on my discman.