Angie Voluti, 58, was feeling burned out and desperate for a change in her life
WORDS: VERONIQUE HAWKSWORTH, MATTHEW BARBOUR. PHOTOS: AMI GIBBARD/SECRET EXPOSURE
Chucking some chips in the oven, I sighed. It was 2011, and I was making dinner for my husband and two sons, Romeo, then nine, and Florio, seven. It was the same dull routine, as usual. Pick the kids up from school, have dinner, tidy up, then get ready for bed. I loved my kids, but ‘mum life’ wasn’t exactly exciting. Before settling down, I’d lived a glamorous lifestyle, working in the luxury car industry, going on dates to fancy restaurants and driving a swanky sports car. But that had long been replaced by a people carrier. As for romance, my husband and I were stuck in a bit of a rut.
‘How was work?’ I asked him while I cooked dinner.
‘Fine,’ he answered, barely looking up.
We hardly spoke, never mind made love!
I was 46 years old and I yearned for some excitement. I even started to fantasise about having scandalous affairs with imaginary men, desperate for a distraction from my mundane life.
In 2012, my husband and I divorced, and juggling being a single mum with my job as a PR was tough. At 7am, I’d get up to make breakfast, then I’d take the boys to school with barely enough time to drag a brush through my hair before work.
‘Here we go again,’ I’d think, when I finally sat down at my desk.
I loved my job, but the long hours and intense workload were taking a toll
- I was constantly exhausted. It was taking a physical toll, too, because I didn’t
eat healthily and rarely did any exercise.
By December 2014, I’d had enough. Chatting on the phone one day to my best friend Marina, then 51, I let out an exhausted sigh. ‘I feel so burned out,’ I vented.
‘You need to do something for you,’ she suggested. ‘Away from work and the boys.’
She was right, but what?
‘What about an exercise class?’ Marina suggested. I wasn’t sure, though. At 5ft 7in and a size 10-12, I didn’t feel like I needed to lose weight.
And at 49, I was unsure of the idea of bouncing around with a group of strangers, getting sweaty to cheesy pop music.
WORKING UP A SWEAT
‘I don’t know if that’s my sort of thing,’ I replied. But Marina convinced me to at least give it a try and so, reluctantly, I looked up exercise classes in my area and settled on Zumba.
Pulling on a pair of stretchy leggings and trainers, I went to my first class at my local leisure centre a few days later. As I worked up a sweat, I actually enjoyed moving my body to music. But although the class was fun, I wasn’t sure if I’d be back. ‘It just wasn’t me,’ I thought, as I left
