Late December.
Lights bright. Music steady. A couple of familiar faces. Everyone moving like they belong there, like the place has muscle memory of its own.
Then the calendar flips. January hits.
Brace yourself. Here come the New Year’s Resolutioners.
Overnight the sanctuary becomes a theme park. The quiet clank of plates gets drowned out by motivational podcasts playing out loud, someone supersetting five machines like they’re trying to beat a high score, and a small tribe gathered around the dumbbells Googling “how to lose belly fat fast” between sets.
I don’t hate them. Not really. They arrive full of hope, wearing brand-new shoes that still squeak on the rubber floor, eyes wide like they just stepped into a monastery made of mirrors.
I’ve watched this migration for years. It crests in early January, peaks somewhere between treadmill and protein powder fatigue, then fades like fireworks smoke in cold air.
By February the crowds thin. The dumbbells find their homes again. The gym exhales. The iron remembers who actually lives here.
That’s the funny part about resolutions. They announce themselves. They arrive with banners and promises and neon-colored water bottles.
Consistency doesn’t.
Consistency is the guy wiping down the bench after tough sets on a Tuesday in March. The woman loading plates at 5:30 am in the middle of September. The quiet nods between people who never had to say they were serious.
So welcome, Resolutioners. Enjoy the chaos while it lasts. I’ll be right over here, doing what I was doing last month, and the month before that. And every month.
The gym doesn’t belong to the people who start loud.
It belongs to the ones who are still here when the resolutions hit the dust bin.