In what can only be described as a supreme stroke of irony, my husband signed us up in June for a gym membership. My book, I Hate It When Exercise Is the Answer, had gone to press the previous week. It didn’t seem possible that now, of all moments, I was about to join the throngs of treadmill walkers, exercise bikers, and lap swimmers. Hot-tub sitters, now, that was a group I could align myself with willingly. But I was skeptical about the rest.

But I really had been kind of desperate to feel less fatigued, and you know, all those women’s magazines tout exercise as the answer for that. So I decided to at least try to give it a fair shot. I climbed up onto the machine. I pushed a few buttons. And I trod.

I think I got in 20 minutes on the treadmill the first day before staggering out, my legs rubbery, my face crimson, my heart pounding wildly. (One thing about being out of shape—I can get up to my “target heart zone” just by going up the flight of stairs to where the cardio equipment sits at our gym. Our gym. I still can’t say that without cracking up.) Gradually I got up to 30 minutes, and then, miraculously, one day my daughter pointed out that I could use my little airline headphones in the machines they had attached to the treadmills, so I could watch the overhead TV of my choice instead of always having to go for the closed-captioned one. And that day they were showing Hitch, and I got so engrossed in the movie that I went 45 minutes without even quite realizing it.

I still don’t love exercising. I don’t know if I ever will. But I’m remembering something a very smart friend of mine said once when we were both young adults and one of the guys in our group was asking us if we “loved cleaning.” I couldn’t lie, and said so: “No, I really don’t.” My friend thought for a minute and finally said, “I love having a clean house.” I may not love exercising, but I love being able to “walk and not faint.” Like most things in mortality that have any lasting value, it’s hard, but it’s worth the price.