Silly kids - windmills are for grownups

One evening last week I found myself standing in the middle of the living room, arms extended, torso rotating, waist bending. "One!" I counted. "Two! Three! Four!" Bend, twist, stand back up.

"Why did I hate this so much back in middle school P.E. class?" I thought. When I got home that night, the very first thing I'd wanted to do was stretch and twist and generally work the kinks out of my back and shoulders and hips. And yet years ago, I loathed this. I loathed all of P.E. I dreaded Mrs. L, a perfectly nice brown-haired woman who nonetheless made me run laps around the gravel track next to the cow field that was my middle school playground.

I spent the hours before P.E. class trying to figure out how to get out of it - and now, years later, I can't wait for the chance to do the exact same activities. Sometime around 5 pm I start thinking about how soon I can get up out of my desk chair and away from my computer and start swinging my arms around. My guy is trying to teach me to throw a baseball properly, and I love every minute.

"What the hell?" I think. This person who's positively panting to go to the gym just isn't me.

And then it hits me: P.E. isn't for kids. Given the chance, kids will happily run up and down the outside stairs at their grandparents' house for hours just because their own house doesn't have outside stairs. No, P.E. is for the adult who's just spent five hours at a desk grading science exams. P.E. is for the parents in office buildings who just wish they were outside getting bonked on the head with a basketball.

Huh. It's a new and startling thought. All those years I never realized what was really going on.

What else am I missing?