My niece Elizabeth took up weight training a while ago. She says it’s improved nearly every aspect of her life. She feels strong, energetic, capable, renewed. She is a new woman! I endorse this whole enterprise. I like everything about it, except for the part where she wants me to do it too.

I am not a new woman. I’ve got some tarnish on me. I agree, in principle, that a weight-training program would be good for my health. Every study on aging says so. So I was on board for it in principle. Which is a bit different from being on board with it in an actual gym.

I know why Elizabeth wants me to do this. Sure, she likes me and wants me to be healthy and she knows I’m not going to give up my beer. But she’s also my main hiking buddy and I do believe she wants to be sure that when I trip over a tree root or a phantom object no one else can see or step off the trail into oblivion (none of which would be unprecedented), I can pick my own dead ass up off the ground again.

After a while, though, she must have noticed that my general agreeableness was not materializing into a plan of action. And for someone of mild temperament with an unaggressive posture toward life, she can be a real pain in the ass. So last weekend, in lieu of me doing any actual weight training, she demanded that I research venues in my neighborhood and report back in one week. And since that gave me another guaranteed week of not weight training, I agreed.

It’s not like I’m completely sedentary. The last few years, I admit, when I was your standard-issue 24-hour-a-day caregiver, the only exercise I got was pushing seventy. Then pulling it. But as soon as I could, I started walking at least two miles a day at a good clip, including stairs. “That’s good,” Elizabeth said, breezily, “but it’s not weight training.” The hell. I’m hauling my own ass around and that’s not nothing.

I’ve always hated running, but now I’m running out of excuses. So I started poking around the available exercise emporia. There are a lot. Within easy walking distance from me are eight yoga and pilates studios and six gyms, two of which I can hit from my house with a tennis ball, or will be able to after I do some strength training. The closest one has boxing lessons. I can’t honestly say a punching bag wouldn’t be just the ticket in today’s news climate.

I did do weight training in my twenties. I ended up with walnut-cracking quads but my arms were always well past al dente. Today I went into a gym about a mile away and had a look around. It specializes in group classes, one of which was going on then and there, and it looked kind of fun. I worry a little bit about being the absolute worst in the group, but then again, no one is going to expect much from a little old lady in Spandex, and they promise to “meet you where you are.” Well, here I am. See what you can do.

The nice woman who chatted with me was willing to let me start right away. Whuh? Now?? Oh no you don’t. That kind of ambush is how I ended up with two real kittens instead of one hypothetical kitten. No no no. She took down my information. This was accomplished by her handing me her phone, and then I had the joy of watching her face as she watched me poke my deets into it with one index finger. It’s not a good sign.

“Next week, then,” she said.

That’s more like it. I know how this goes. It’s like when you’re a tiny kid and you’re afraid of getting on the escalator. Someone has you tight by the hand and lets you dither for a bit but sooner or later you’ve got to just take that step, and then you’re locked on, and you’re going where the escalator goes, into the unknown. Well, it’s not the unknown. It’s third floor, home furnishings and ladies’ unmentionables. But the point is you’re on the path, and getting on the path in the first place is sometimes the hardest part.

I hope. I don’t actually know where this escalator will end up.