City-wide.

[First of all, a big HI and HELLO to my friends from the writing workshop on Tuesday night! Yay for bloggy talk and author talk and talking too much about car repair blogs! (This is your cue to say hi back in the comments, workshop friends.) 🙂 Seriously- what a PLEASURE to meet you all and I hope to hear from you a lot in the future! Thanks to Denise and Shari for inviting me to speak.]

And yes, bloggites, of course I talked about you. And you. And obviously, YOU.

In case you’ve forgotten [you haven’t, I won’t let you] I’m involved in this Get Fit Challenge thing. And so I’ve been going to the YMCA a lot more.

Here’s the thing about the Y in middle Tennessee. It’s a BIG DEAL. Like, everybody in the whole city [ridiculous exaggeration] is a member. And in Nashville, there are probably 8-9 YMCA facilities within 20 minutes of my house.

I like.

So you can either join ONE of the Ys or you can get a CITY-WIDE membership that is, understandably, more expensive TOTALLY AWESOME. Because then you can go to any Y- you can take a spin class from Marisa at the East Nashville Y and then meet Lyndsay at the Green Hills Y for a Zumba class.

[Nope. Not in the same day. I’m hard core, just not THAT hard core.]

But, because I live on a budget, I’m a one Y member. Just Green Hills. I joined about 10 months ago and have always and only been to the Green Hills Y, though the others have beckoned me from a-near [opposite of afar, obviously].

And as I was perusing the YMCA website the other day, I saw that the Downtown Y had a water aerobics class called Aqua-Burn. To which I said, “Thank you sir may I have another” because I heart water aerobics.

Problem = it was at a different Y. So I called and they said I can come ONE TIME AND ONE TIME ONLY to try the class.

I walk in and the man scans my card. I go into a lengthy diatribe [shocker] about how I’m visiting because I may want to get a city-wide membership and I know I’m young but water aerobics is actually fairly challenging…..

He stops me, points at the picture on the screen and says, “Is that you?”

To which I reply, “Uh, yeah, it’s me. I had a great hair day that day and it was summer so I was tan and…”

“Ma’am. You already have a city-wide membership.”

“What? No, I don’t. I’ve been a member for 10 months and I’ve always just had a membership to Green Hills.”

He laughed and said, “well, you’ve actually always been a city-wide member.”

I’ve been wrong. For 10 months. I believed that I had to live with limits that were not mine.

And in some crazy way, God has used this to bring up a lot in my heart. How many areas of my life do I live under false limits because I believe something that is not true?

And I’m reminded of how Jesus set me free.

And I’m going to go to a different YMCA every day simply BECAUSE I CAN.

I am free.

In so many ways.

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