the original wound

i’m high functioning for someone who moralizes every day action, categorizes it into good human, bad human. brushing my teeth in the morning, good human, flossing, even better human.

tea, yogurt, fruit, good human.

leftover halloween candy, bad human.

not working, bad human, lazy human.

moving through more than one item on a task list, good human.

i took a shower on mushrooms once and as i shampooed my hair, slopping suds around my crown and i thought “this is what humans do, right? this is what normal people do.” jake on the couch watching VH1, wrapped in a blanket. i wanted to go outside but i couldn’t leave him alone, convinced he’d start shriveling into nothing, to dust, if i left.

so i showered, good human. cleaned the apartment, good human. who does mushrooms to swiffer and do the dishes? plates crusted with old indian food that resisted being wiped down. i scrubbed harder, better human. better humans try.

green tea, good human, lettuce wrap, good human. daily walks, good human. knee pain, bad human. fat, tired and stoned, bad human. why aren’t you more fluent in spanish? it’s been two years, slow human.

i made a vat of mashed potatoes, enough for a family of 10, like thanksgiving, like a party, but it’s just 2 of us and 2 little perritos, bad human. butter and cream and salt, worse human.

dusty stationary bike, bad human. pile of unfinished crafts, bad human, $4 protein bar for breakfast, does not compute. are protein bars neutral?

***

i didn’t mean to write about drugs or my ex or how i thought he’d turn to dust if i left him. we’re both very much not dust, something that lived despite all the terrible things we said to one another. i didn’t walk away, like a song, an anthem of resilience. it was more like a farting, deflating balloon, a little bit, a lot a bit broken and there was no going back to who i was before.

3 days after we broke up, i transferred the willie nelson tickets to his name, a farewell gift that he railed against, as angry as one can be over text.

when something dies we remember what we love.

i had forgotten myself.

i sat in the video game seat, the on that looks like a car, my friends in the bathroom in the movie theater. i hid, not playing the game, not a quarter to be found, so i couldn’t race along a fake malibu beach, a bikini babe in my corvette, the only place for someone like me to be in the moment, a lot a bit broken, but a lot relieved.

charlie

let me love the world the way i love my dog, running frantically towards me in a panic, a foxtail in his paw, a deep anxiety, stranger danger, ailments and things he will never be able to tell me but i try and fix anyway. a trip to the vet to have them tell me there’s nothing wrong, but there is, there is, look in his eyes. charlie grinds his teeth. doggie prozac is the same as human prozac.

let me love the world i may never understand. maybe it’s not about understanding but just loving anyway because people are complicated and can’t tell you what’s wrong in a way you’ll understand and we don’t have time to wait for a reason that makes sense.

this is what i know. things that i never thought forgivable, eventually are. i want to be soft and easy, like this belly, pliant and giving and warm.

let me love, like charlie, asking for help with no shame. i’m but a small creature in a world too large for me, we both say. this is what we know.

over here

i’ve moved to tumblr.  http://iamnotadesigner.tumblr.com/

shelf

sorry i’ve been m.i.a. i’ve been busy trying to build a butt shelf once squat at a time.

sore

Right back at it despite the fact that I keep falling in the toilet because my thighs are sore. At least after Chris’ 7AM class I get to take it easy.

burn

the lady on the mat in front of me at burn sf today saw my ugly face.

just this past weekend i was talking to sadia after a super sweaty soulcycle class with lauren mchale, one of our favorite teachers and admitted that i was grateful that the room is dark and i’m usually not in the front row because i was completely certain i make ugly face all the time in class.  whether it’s the out of the saddle sprinting where i feel like a tiny pup treading water during a tsunami trying to keep my head up and chest forward or if i’m pushing against several turns too many on the resistance knob while sitting unable to use my body weight to push through the pedal stroke i know my face is doing things outside of my control as my body is too busy focusing on not giving up.

burn sf is only my third foray into group fitness in my life if you count yoga as one (i sorta don’t since my main reason for going to yoga isn’t necessarily fitness related).  burn is about an hour of cardio, weights and pilates (springboard).  you move from high impact cardio moves (jumping jacks, burpees, side runs, to cardio with dumbbells, to floor core work, to spring board work for legs and arms.  the spring work is usually more towards the later half of class but everything else is fair game as you move from burpees and mountain climbers to bicep curl lunges to bicycle crunches at what feels like lightening speed.

i’m usually dripping sweat within 5 minutes of class and by the end i’m using hand towels so i don’t slip all over my now drenched mat.  how i have not yet completely face planted during plank-ups is a miracle.

with all this soulcycle i’ve been doing i’ve gotten comfortable sweating and screaming and grimacing in a safe dark space.

not well lit open studios with music at a normal decibel where everyone can hear you…dying…slowly.

several times i was off during side planks and found myself facing the lady in front of me.  every time we made eye contact she smiled and i couldn’t help but nervously laugh though various parts of my body were doing the opposite.

i was off the entire class so we found each other face to face a lot this morning.  i was typically making ugly face, trying to not slip on my own sweat with various body parts quivering. each time she would smile encouragingly i started trying to smile back but my brain was too busy trying to figure out how to get my body to do whatever shape was supposed to be happening at the moment so my face stuck in the ugly position for the most part.  i had the best intentions.

the worst place for me to make friends is in the middle of a side plank hip lift.

after class as we were frantically wiping down our mats for the next class which was already strolling in she asked me how i liked class.

“it was hard,” I answered honestly. “but i loved it!”

“yeah, she builds class in a way that when you think you can’t do anything harder,  you’re asked to and you have to do it.”

“i know!  what is this ‘have to’? and why do we all do it?”

“i don’t know,”  she said as she wiped down the last edge of her mat and handed me the spray bottle of multi-purpose cleaner. “i think we all have our own reasons but for the most part we do it because we want to get stronger. you know, get better.”

she wished me a good morning and bounded up the steps to the waiting room in what looked like 2 long strides.  i thought about what my slow hobble up the stairs to fetch my shoes and hoodie would look like.

there are times when i see women after a workout and they’re glistening and glowing, their baby hairs matted to the napes of their necks, their top knot messy bun perfectly un-perfect, their tiny little barefoot feet pit-pit-pitting around a fitness studio like nimble little fairies as they giggle and talk to their other glistening friends after class and i wonder if that will ever be me.

and will i ever get over wanting that to be me.

will i ever get over it because my flat hobbit feet and chunky cankles aren’t going anywhere.  my short torso and wide ribcage are set in place by ossified bones that dictated my shape a long time ago. a long time ago when i had no idea that i was still growing and malleable and if i had just discovered pilates and yoga during puberty maybe i’d be at least 5’ tall.  if i had only known earlier.  if i had started caring earlier. if i had known better.  if i hadn’t scarfed one too many peanut butter kandy kakes for breakfast.  if i had…

if i had, who knows who i would end up looking like or being today?

sometimes i can’t help but think about this alternate universe me and if she would have used her powers for good or evil? this bizzaro world me is always some sort of hybrid ballerina/ninja who has never in her life experienced thigh chafing in the summer time or coming to terms with ugly face in a well lit group fitness studio.

she doesn’t exist and she’s in my way.

i get so bogged down with these ideas and it’s ridiculous because it’s all so intangible and change is possible. the idea of these women who glisten.  the idea of my alterna-me non-chaffing ninja. i made these things up.  i gave them weight and power.

i can change my mind.  i can let it go.

i can’t change my body to be this impossible thing.  the past couple of months of losing weight has been great but at times misleading.  i can lose fat. i can build muscle, i can get stronger but i can’t wake up tomorrow with someone else’s bone structure and genetics.

but i can change my mind.

and i can choose to get out of my own way and trust that i’m exactly where i need to be.

yes

out of all my favorite part of the mackelmore ride, my most favorite is that kid in the front. he rocked the front row and had a blast.

all i can think of was how awkward and surly i would have been if i was a kid whose mom dragged me to a spin class and how awful i would be to my mom afterwards. this kid is much more awesome than i ever would have been and it made me so happy to see someone have so much no holds barred fun.

it’s all about choices.

i made a choice to get up this morning at 4:45AM and ride like a complete beast in class. it was ugly and it was awesome. and i feel a lot better about all these emotions and thoughts that have been weighing me down this week.

this makes it easier to say ‘FUCK ALL Y’ALL’ this morning and keep moving forward.

process

(photo credit, Chris Fanning)

Chris Layda, one of my three favorite soulcycle teachers is my fitspiration. I think it’s because beyond this photo, I’ve seen him in person, I’ve gone to his classes, I’ve been pushed and motivated in ways I’ve never been before.  I realized after Monday night’s sweat therapy session that I am the most honest with myself on how much resistance I put on the wheel in Chris’ class.   I don’t negotiate like I do in other classes.  I just turn it to the right and I trust that I can push through it and I end up surprising myself when I do.  I think I also had gotten used to the way classes seem to be structured with hills and sprints placed in certain places.  Having the intense hill climb after arms instead of before threw me for a loop and it was refreshing because my brain and body were expecting a contemplative song and out of the seat jog followed by the final sprint home.

While there’s the class that’s the most fun (bea) and the class that’s emotionally fulfilling and therapeutic (ian), Chris’ class is the most physically challenging for me because for some reason when he’s in that room and i’m on that bike i trust that i can do whatever it is he’s telling me to do and i walk away completely aware that my body has changed.

and that feeling is more inspirational than any image on the internet you can ever find of the most athletic person in the world.

breaking it down it sounds so simple. i want to change.  i know what to do to enact this change. i do the thing and the result is change.  what i never account for in this process is the part of my brain that tells me that no matter what i do i will not succeed.  there is a voice that’s buried deep within all of us that tells us these things, plants the seed of doubt, makes us second guess everything we do.  i often drown in this and and tip toe back and forth over feeling good about myself and feeling awful about everything i do and this struggle, this internal fighting is what keeps me from really fully getting to any goal i set.

i see the shiny gold medal at the end of the rainbow and even if i’m one inch away from reaching it what keeps me from it is he fact that there is a piece of me that believes I don’t deserve it.  no matter how hard i work or how much i give, there is a tiny slice of me that still believes i’m not worthy of it.

i’m holding myself back.  i’m in my own way.

i’ve known this for awhile.

the next step is to get comfortable with being awesome.

i’m constantly amazed at how emotionally exhausting it is to believe you’re not worthy of happiness.  it’s a process and it moves slower than i want it to but it helps to have someone on a consistent basis tell you you can do something you’re so sure you can’t do.

well then THAT happened

the year started out quiet and easy. life was good.  i thrive the most during quiet times. i did a lot of yoga and spent time with the dr. and not much else.  

we had a portland reunion.  it was pretty successful.  i miss having everyone i know in one place.

we started going on weekly hikes.  we got lost a lot.  and i got dirty. a lot.

 

we mostly rewarded ourselves with food.

my favorite food group

i bought the dr. a plane for his birthday.  

i made an appointment.  i had my boobs removed.

recovery wasn’t as awful as anticipated.  4.4 lbs of boob removed and i started going down stairs differently and stood taller.  running and yoga were completely new experiences.  

that’s a lot of boob when you look at it.

sadia introduced me to soulcycle.  i cried during my first class. i couldn’t honestly tell you if it was because i was so out of shape the class broke my body or because something inside my brain snapped and all this stuff came spilling out.  stress and bad memories and lots of ugly awful guilt. feeling all the feels is not pretty. it’s made especially worse in Marin, the land of fit blondes with disposable income(with whom we were basically surrounded by). thank god they keep the room dark. 

we kept hiking.  we’d soulcycle and hike and this was better and cheaper than therapy.

we even discovered ferngully

a lot of this year i felt like this.

and this.

but this always helped

and spending time here

we went here for my birthday

and the dr. asked me to marry him

this was the year i came to love the woods

oh, and i said yes

i went to wisconsin to eat at culvers and see this little guy

work started to get sorta crazy too

so there was a lot of this

and this

but we got to go away for an offsite retreat!

i need to find a wedding dress. so there was some of this

i went to seattle to see some of my favorite people get married

and discovered the wonder that is Port Townsend 

and started to re-evaluate my priorities

sadia and jason threw us an engagement party at flora grubb

soulcycle opened in the city

i added it into my workout routine.  i even ran uphill from my house to class one day.  this is not recommended.

we flew home for the holidays

so i could spend as much time as possible oogling these guys

and hang out with these guys

and share this guy with the entire family where i usually just get him all to myself

and eat more than my fair share of east coast junk food i can’t get in SF (not pictured: tastykakes & soft pretzels)

somewhere along the way this year i lost 30 lbs without killing myself 

and even though i’m currently laid up in bed with some sort of evil flu 

proof positive

i’m pretty happy with how 2013 turned out.  

i did not stab anyone repeatedly with a fork as i’ve often daydreamed about because it’s not worth the effort to hate.  

even the times i’ve turned that hate around on myself, I gave up and let it go. 

even though it’s a struggle, even though there are a hundred justifiable reasons to hold onto it, i’ve realized the best thing to do is to let go of what no longer serves you.  there are lots of other things out there that deserve your time and effort. like baby nephews and baking cookies and reading books and getting lost in the woods with your friends.

yup

i can’t predict what will happen next year.  

but if you need me i’m going to kill this head cold and step outside to enjoy this last bit of 2013.

i hope you have a wonderful evening.  stay warm. do dumb things.  don’t get caught.  sleep in and eat lots of pancakes tomorrow.  

i know i will.

 

 

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