I asked for the number nobody wanted to give me

I've had four gym memberships and I could not tell you a single number from any of them.

Not because the numbers weren't taken. They were. Somebody measured me every time, printed something, and put it in a folder I never opened. It felt like a receipt for a purchase I'd already regretted.

So two years ago I started asking, at every place I went: what was it in January. Not what is it now. What was it in January.

Three places couldn't answer. One said the files were archived. One said my previous trainer had left. One offered to re-measure me and start fresh, which is a nice way of saying the answer doesn't exist.

The fourth place pulled up a page and read me a line I still remember: your starting figure, today's figure, and the sentence "the thing that moved first was your waist, not your weight, and that's normal in month one."

That was it. That was the whole reason I stayed. Someone had kept my January.

The strange part is I didn't need the number to be good. I needed it to exist, and to be mine, and to be findable without anyone's memory being involved.

MOJOWAY is the only system I've used where the coach opens the year on a screen instead of apologizing, and where what they show me has their name on it.