Something really terrifying that I always notice when I’m up in the morning and I don’t have to work is how many people are jogging or biking for exercise — they are electing to do this — down the side of the street. Everybody is doing it.

The worst part is this doesn’t even include people who get their cardio in at the gym, or delusional Shredheads whose knees are going to hate them in a few years, or evening power-walkers, or neon-clad people who congregate in the park and stretch for half an hour and then feel accomplished.

Like I said, everyone is doing it. Exercising, I mean. Everyone but me. Currently, my health takes up very little space in my mental inbox.

The only exercise I get is angrily marching to and from the parking lot that’s a block away from my apartment twice a day (more if someone invites me somewhere). I used to run around wildly at work, hoping my efforts would be recognized, but they weren’t. So now I walk to all of my work-related destinations. Slowly.

And I’m not one of those people who can just order a salad at Panera and only eat half of it and feel satisfied. No, I want a sandwich and some soup with baguettes for both sides, please. Anyway, the cashier always stares at me in bewilderment, as if to say — except they actually do say this — “You mean you want half a sandwich and the soup? Like, the ‘You Pick Two’?” And I’m all, “No, like, I picked my two. I want the full sandwich and the soup. And that croissant over there looks really good. Yes, I still want the baguettes.” I’m really into bread, okay? And this is a restaurant! I wouldn’t have bothered making the annoying left-hand turn across three lanes of traffic with no signal to get here if I wasn’t actually hungry, so you can put your gavel down any time now.

The one thing I’ve never been able to comprehend is that people legitimately enjoy working out. The last time I went for a run, I made it about three hundred feet until I was just like, no. And then I walked the rest of the way, all the while not entirely being able to navigate the sidewalk because I was seeing intense black spots and I wasn’t really getting enough oxygen, and that was my attempt at exercise for the year. Literally. It’s been a year.

And I kind of assumed everyone else was like me, a long-time hater of movement. But some people like to sweat, and I’m jealous. I want to want to sweat, too. I want to come up behind people at the crosswalk, softly breathing even though I’m on mile four, my ponytail somehow swishing even though I’m standing still, and sprint right past them because I have made a decision to run and I’m going to stick to it. Then I’ll come home, collapse on a chair, and sip out of my water bottle while I think about how healthy and fantastic I feel. And then I’ll have a glass of wine, even if it’s ten in the morning.

Maybe next year.