Tonight, I went to a gym for the first time in probably almost three years. It may as well have been 25 years. Maybe it was just the gym I chose, I don’t know, but it was disorienting as hell.

I’ve been kind of bi-polar when it comes to fitness throughout my life–periods of great physical activity followed by periods of pure sloth. Part of the sloth is the laziness that comes from having pretty good genes and a usually OK diet. The other part is lifestyle–mainly the workaholic kind that puts every creative and economic pursuit above anything else.

I wasn’t particularly athletic as a kid, but I signed up for my first gym membership at 18 or 19, along with my friend Jason. It was at the Las Vegas Athletic Club (LVAC), a 24 Hour Fitness equivalent that I’d come back to on and off throughout my time in Vegas. The first time around, I didn’t really stick to it. Showed up maybe once or twice a week for a few months and then lapsed. Playing music and publishing zines took priority.

In my mid-20s, my ex-wife and I joined Gold’s Gym, and I got a lot more serious about getting/staying in shape. At the time, I was still pretty scrawny (weighing in at about 145 lbs; I’m about 5-foot-10), and my goal was to put on mass. I was getting up at 4:30 most mornings to hit the gym before work. I was taking creatine supplements, downing high-calorie shakes, reading a lot of muscle magazines. I managed to get up to about 160 lbs by the time I got divorced and physical fitness again gave way to work, social activities and a lot of drinking. I’d occasionally dawdle around at the tiny gym inside my apartment building, but mostly I was just sweating out the aforementioned booze.

After my life stabilized again in my early 30s, I found myself blown up to almost 190 lbs, with super high cholesterol and other physical ailments. As I’ve documented here in detail, I changed my lifestyle, my diet, and my exercise regimen. Not only was I back at LVAC (with my now-wife Sara), but I started running, first for health, then just because I enjoyed it. That was my thing for several years, running several road and trail races, including a half-marathon, and–according to one doctor–getting my cardiovascular system as healthy as an 18-year-old. I let my LVAC membership lapse, but only because I had access to a corporate fitness center, replete with free personal training. I was eating well, at my ideal weight, and getting stronger…

…then I had an appendectomy.

A lot of people have had their appendix out. It’s very common. It’s not life changing. But it was bad timing for me, in a number of ways. First, I didn’t just have an appendectomy; I also had an umbilical hernia fixed. So my abdominal region was tore up and useless for a few months, which means I couldn’t do any strenuous activity or heavy lifting. At the same time, however, my band was doing pretty well and about to release an album, so I was back on my feet playing music within a month of the surgery. That was probably a mistake. I could barely stand up straight with the weight of the bass guitar slung over my shoulder to play a 30-minute set at first. Then I stupidly lifted my extremely heavy bass amp into my car by myself on the way to a gig one night, straining my still-fresh scar tissue (and possibly causing another hernia that may or may not persist to this day, not that any doctor will take me seriously).

I got back to the gym a few months later, but then lost access to it (and my awesome primary care physician) when I got offered a new job. I opted not to join another gym, but put myself through a regimen that required no special equipment. All body weight exercises and fresh-air cardio. I stuck to that for about a month before it got too damn hot in Las Vegas to be outside working out. And then the new job got super intense (and would stay that way for the next few years), and I let that and playing music and making comics and being social come before self-care, once again.

Moving to California was supposed to change all of that. Perfect weather! Sunny beaches! Easy access to healthy food! But, um, I just worked a lot. And didn’t leave the house much, because I was working at home, and then this whole thing with our dogs and their inability to be left alone without losing their minds happened. So, yeah, occasionally Sara and I would ride our bikes (dogs in tow) to the beach, and maybe once a month, I’d go for a 2- or 3-mile run around the neighborhood. But I wasn’t eating great (or, rather, I was eating too greatly), not moving my body enough (except for all those push-ups, I guess), and suffering a bit of depression, to boot.

Well, a lot of that has changed. We’re in a bigger house where the dogs have been able to adjust to being alone again without them causing headaches for our neighbors or anxiety for their owners. I have a new job that requires me to leave the house and is located in a quaint, walk-able neighborhood that encourages me to, well, walk a lot. I’ve started riding my bike to get around on the weekends again (the weather has helped). My employer doesn’t have a gym I can use, but it does give me money each month to spend on wellness, which brings up back to why I’ve signed up for a gym membership once again.

This time around, it’s 24 Hour Fitness, and my “home” location is located in the heart of downtown Costa Mesa. It’s a Super Sport location, with multiple levels. There are racquetball and basketball courts, group fitness rooms, cardio machines, an indoor pool, and what appeared to be a bootcamp-style group training area, right out in the open. One guy behind the front desk (really more of a retail counter) greeted just about everyone by name as I got entered into the biometric sign-in system. I got pitched on some sort of protein supplement that was on sale. There was an a maze of workstations manned by personal trainers. Everyone at the gym was already fit. No one was coming here begrudgingly because their doctor made them.

My first workout was not great, but it was a staring point. I got winded too easily and my shoulders kinda just gave out at one point. But I have an appointment with a trainer this weekend to assess my goals and come up with a plan to achieve them–even if I go to a slightly less intimidating location to execute that plan in the future. And hopefully this time, I stick to my guns, because the reality of old(er) age and the amount of my clothes that don’t fit are staring me in my puffy face.