I was flailing about at the back of the room, because that’s where I always plant myself when I try a new class at the gym. Even though the back of the room is floor-to-ceiling windows that face out on the cavernous area that holds the elliptical machines and the treadmills and what my 5-year-old refers to as the “imaginary bicycles.” The windows are mostly frosted glass, though, so I stick to the back of the room and flail.

This time it was Turbo Kick, which is “a fusion of hip hop and kickboxing.” If I’d read that description earlier today, I would not have gone to Turbo Kick. It’s best for everyone involved if I avoid dance-based activities. But I was there, and the instructor was enthusiastic and everyone was hipping and hopping and kicking and boxing, so I thought I’d just stick it out.

And I tried. But I hopped when everyone else hipped, and I bobbed when everyone else weaved, and as a result I nearly got kicked in the nose. This is not the first time I’ve felt utterly uncoordinated at the gym, and it most certainly won’t be my last. That wasn’t what made me pick up my water bottle and towel and head for the showers. (Metaphorically speaking. I actually headed for the restroom, where I hid until I was positive I wasn’t going to cry.)

It started with the instructor. She was so enthusiastic and so obviously enjoying what she was doing. She didn’t just bob and weave; she leapt across the floor. And that wasn’t even the problem. I was still sticking it out until she started doing crazy fast combination moves, and I literally could not keep up. It was over, and I hadn’t started. You might chalk this up to the learning curve, but it wasn’t just that. Even when I understood what was supposed to happen, I couldn’t do it.

As I watched her bound about the room and felt myself plod (side-to-side over and over wrong time wrong way every time), a thought popped into my head: What would it feel like if my body actually did what I wanted it to do?

That was it. The thought turbokicked me in the gut and sent me scuttling away, head down and towel in hand. The instructor was moving effortlessly, and I was … I don’t know. A bumbling lump. The contrast overwhelmed me and crushed me, and I’ve spent the last few hours reeling from angry to sad back to angry and finally here at writing about it.

I really want to end this post on a high note. Something inspirational. I would like to say this was going to be my call to action. I’d like to tell you I’m going to be the change I want to see. I’d like to point to this moment in my After interview — imagining, of course, that there’d be such a thing — and say, “Well, there was this time that I couldn’t hack it, and I Rocky Balboa’d the thing, and now I’m the king of the world!” Maybe, given time and effort and dedication and gallons upon gallons of sweat, that would happen. And maybe someday I’d know what it felt like to want to leap and frolic and then make it happen. Right now, though, I can hardly imagine anything less likely.

(And I know I need to stop beating myself up about this. But sometimes a little wallowing is the best medicine.)

(That’s probably not true at all, about the wallowing.)