BAM!

Why do I insist on wearing/packing my rattiest, dingiest, holeiest undies for the gym?  It's like feeling like I don't fit in isn't punishment enough & my subconscious says, "Let's kick it up a notch--BAM--holes in the crotch of the underwear that you are trying to put on while balancing on wet flip flops, holding a towel under your chin & praying for death next to Work-Out Barbie & her friend Never-Had-Kids Skipper."  My sub-conscious is mean...& wordy...& thinks she's Emeril Lagasse.  But it's okay--BAM--I went anyway.  And I rocked my holey undies & my used-to-be-beige-but-now-it's-blue-because-I-wash-it-with-denim nursing bra.  Eat your heart out, Skipper.

Also, I'm really digging this reminder that I wrote for myself January 2012:

Dear Sara at 6:30 AM on Saturday January 7,
You will likely be frustrated when you get on the scale.  You will be mad because you've done your carefully planned regular workouts & you didn't magically lose 5 lbs.  In fact, in all likelihood you will have a meager loss or *gasp* a gain.  This is your pattern whenever you kick up your workout intensity. Also part of the pattern is your amazing ability to forget this fact when you step on the scale.  Please remember that your body is a complicated machine & takes some time to respond properly to the shock you're giving it.  Please also remember that you wouldn't have to be remembering this if you hadn't been such a slacker recently.  You don't have to ramp it up if you don't let it peter down.  Just sayin'...
Hugs & Kisses,
Sara at 9:13 on Tuesday January 3

Globo Gym

"Dodgeball" is a spectacular piece of cinema--but my favorite movie is "Encino Man," so you can take that recommendation with as much salt as you like.

We joined the new gym in town & for the life of me I cannot walk through the doors without thinking about the "Dodgeball" scene where Ben Stiller is hyping his mega-gym in an ad with the tag-line, "Here at Globo Gym, we're better than you...& we know it."  Not that ANYONE has made me feel bad, to the contrary everyone that works there is so nice that I feel certain that they must be robots or high or robots that ARE high.  And then I wonder what substances make robots high & I'm standing at the front desk with my card in my hand snickering while people in line behind me are just wanting to get their "burn" on but they have to wait for the maniac in front of them to stop nose laughing about robot pot.

Any-who...in trying to break free from the pressure of "doing it like before" I quit Weight Watchers.  I have NOTHING bad to say about Weight Watchers.  Ever.  But, my past was hanging on me & I couldn't drag myself to meetings because I felt like such a failure & I couldn't not go to meetings because it seemed like such a waste.  On the bulletin board in the meeting room they had a clipping of me from the local paper from "last time" & I would sit & stare at that damned picture from all the way across the room & I would hate the picture & hate myself & hate whoever actually still gets newspapers & hate the scissors that clipped the picture out.  It was a lot of hate.  And then they canceled my meeting time.  It was a sign.  Dave & I had been mulling over the new mega-gym & trying to figure out how to put it into the budget.  So I found $43 per month to contribute to the cause.

I'm still gym-phobic.  I get clammy & sweaty every time I walk in the door (probably why I defensively play Ben Stiller movies in my head).  I "know" I look ridiculous & fat & awkward & out of shape & "people" are thinking that I don't belong.  But I'm going because it could not be any more different than anything I have ever tried.  And, my kids straight up mad love that place so they ask me every. single. day. if we're going to the gym.  And I have to say yes because above all else I'm trying to break the cycle.  So we go & a little part of me wants to splash water on my face & then sit sipping smoothies in the cafe for an acceptable amount of time before I just go get them, but somewhere along the line I got this idea that lying to kids is generally bad.  So instead, I've done Zumba, Pilates, LifeBarre (which is a nice way of saying MeanBallet) & I'm trying to psyche myself up to talk to a personal trainer so that I can get some sort of meager idea what to do with all of the sparkly machines in the middle.

It's nice that I can look my kids in the eye again when we're talking about being healthy & taking care of our bodies.  It's nice that my daughter told me that my belly looks less plump.  It's nice that I can hide my fear of the gym behind the chaos of a new facility where everyone is still learning the ropes.  It's nice that I can take a shower while my kids are doing a karate class & not have anyone barge in on me.  It's nice to be making a change.  And it's nice that I can go to my mental happy place & hear Ben Stiller saying, "Do you smell that fitness?  I do."

Boobs. Because...Boobs!

My boobs are a travesty.

It took me a good long while to figure out what my first sentence back at the keyboard should be.  A whimsical lamentation about something frivolous seemed like the perfect way to show myself that I'm still me.  I still have a voice.  I still have my meager wit.  I still like to poke fun.  I just don't have a killer rack anymore.  And the Earth, it keeps a-spinning.

A lot has changed over the past couple of years.  My tiny, blobby baby is a busy toddler & my "big" kids are going to be in First Grade & pre-K in the Fall.  I may or may not have a latent health condition that will rear its ugly head when I let my guard down.  I started watching "Game of Thrones."  I don't want to use artificial or highly processed foods to fuel my body.   My hubby took a new job that is more demanding of his time but so worth it in his job satisfaction.  My hair turned really dark brown.  I quit Weight Watchers.  I joined a shiny new gym.  I became obsessed with reducing my family's waste.  I stopped caring about reducing the size of my waist.  I thought about learning to knit--but then I remembered that I don't like crafts.

Somewhere in all of these changes I realized that I'm not the same person that I was two, three or four years ago--so I need to stop expecting myself to act like I am.  I spent a lot of time comparing myself to my prior post-baby timeline.  I spent a lot of time wishing that magical thinking would make everything the same (or better).  I lost 100 lbs in one year a couple of years ago.  That's neat, but I don't have to do it again to be successful & I don't owe anyone an apology for things not being the same.  I'm not the same, even though I'm still me.  And that is an empowering revelation.

I can still make with the funny about gravity's ever-increasing pull on my ta-tas.  I can still have highs & lows.  But they WILL be different.  The weight isn't coming off as smoothly as it did the last time.  I'm not as singularly focused on making it so.  It's not rocket science, it's just life & I need to get to a head space where I stop putting my past self on a pedestal & start putting my current self back in the game.  The new game.  With a better bra because National Geographic is for real life, folks.