Suburban Goddess

Yesterday was the second installment with the personal trainer. As I sat down to go over my food log, I let her know that my last will and testament was now in order, so she could proceed to kill me.

“Awesome!” came her all-too-perky reply.

After 45 minutes of cardio, it was now time to tackle my wobbly core muscles. Last week, she gave me a series of exercises to strengthen them; this week she decided to up the resistance. One of those exercises involved putting my hips on a large ball, facing downward, planting my feet firmly against the base of the wall, and lifting the front of my body until I was at a 45 degree angle. From there, my hands would stretch into three distinct positions: straight above my head, straight out to the sides, and reaching down towards my toes before falling into a resting position on the floor beneath me. As I started, my back muscles held on; the strengthening exercise from the past week had conditioned me well… but after a few reps, the burning in my back became excruciating.

“You’re doing GREAT!”

“I’m DYING.”

“You’re FINE.”

“OWWWWWW!”

“Suck it up. Five more!”

It’s this moment when you realize, there is no gun to your head. There is no urgency that you MUST put yourself through this pain. Sure, she’s in good shape and all, but I could take her down if I needed to. If I didn’t have any other advantage, I could just sit on her. But I grit my teeth and powered through, trying not to think about the searing pain in my lower back but instead on the hollistic healing properties of chocolate.

The next medium of torture was something I swore off years ago.

“Now we’re going to do push ups.”

“What’s this ‘we?’ You got a mouse in your pocket?”

“Drop!”

Strange, the invisible leash this woman seems to have on me, because I immediately dropped down to the floor (although, now that I think about it, I think I just wanted to get horizontal for a moment to catch my breath.) Of course, I couldn’t even complete five the correct way (“On your TOES!”), but then she took some of the sting out of it by allowing me to put my feet on the ball and lower down, versus pushing up.

That’s all fine and dandy if you have balance. I don’t. And it’s not bad enough that you’re consistantly falling off this stupid ball, but at this particular gym, physical training is done in front of everyone. So I started to get a little audience. Come by anytime; I’ll be here all week. Tomorrow I’m putting out a tip jar. Just ask the front desk when you come in, “Where’s the Ball Lady?” and they will snicker and point you in my direction.

The final nail in my coffin was the be-all-end-all-worse-exercise-ever-invented. The one that makes me cry. The one that I hate more passionately than words can describe: lunges. I hate lunges because I’ve never done them correctly, resulting in a messed up knee. Crazy Trainer is determined to correct that, and her solution to painful lunges is doing…. more lunges. I have to admit, though, when someone is standing there, quite literally poking your butt and keeping your knee in line, I realized why it had hurt for years and quickly corrected my form.

That being said, just because my knee didn’t hurt, didn’t mean that the original intention of the exercise did not. After five, my rear started to burn so bad that Satan himself could roast marshmallows on it.  I fell into a pattern (since I had to do three reps of fifteen). The first five went something like: down, up, down, up, down, up, down, OW, down, OWWWWW. The next five were: down, OWWW DAMMIT, down, OUCHIE, down, I WILL NEVER EAT A COOKIE AGAIN, down, CRAP (not literally), down, (insert another four letter word here).  The last five simply became a haze of red pain, brief flshes of cheesecake and lattes, various strings of profanities, and momentary blackouts that will later be identified by my therapist in some form of post-traumatic-stress disorder.

At the end of the workout, Crazy Trainer believes in “assisted stretching,” which involves her pushing my muscles past the point they want to go to increase flexibility. And although it is uncomfortable, it’s nothing compared to the rest of the hour. The final stretch of the day found me flat on my back as she held down my shoulder, twisting my leg across my body to the opposite side until I shreiked. 

“Wow, you’re really tight on this side.”

“Not anymore!” I cried before howling a rather loud “OWWWWWWWW.” One of the older men who’d been enjoying my little masochistic show leaned over the glass and chuckled.

“You okay over there, honey?”

“No! Call the police! I’m being assualted!”

Crazy Trainer laughed before stretching my leg even further.  “She’s just a wuss… but we’ll tighten her up!”

I almost called it quits right there… but when I got up this morning, my jeans slipped on much more easily than days past.

I’ll never be able to shut her up now.

On the way to daycare this morning, there was the slightest drizzle.  After a few moments, the small droplets barely marred my view of the road.

“Mommy, you can turn on the wipers for that.”

“For what, baby?”

“For the rain.”

“I know.”

“You should really turn on the wipers, Mommy, so you can see.”

“I can see.”

“But there’s rain in the way, and the wipers make it go away.”

“I know.”

“You should turn them on.”

I laughed internally, flicking the control to swipe the windshield with one pass and restoring the glass to a pristine window. But as we continued to drive, the mist built up again.

“Mommy. Wipers.”

“Thank you baby.”

(Repeat this scenario four times, until Alex became exasperated.)

“Mommy, your wipers are BROKEN. They’re supposed to stay ON.”

OCD at its finest, y’all.

I simply could not take my daughter patting my rear anymore, exclaiming, “Mommy, you have a big booty!” Couple that with the fact that my energy seems to be waning, my knees are always hurting, and my clothes are getting tighter:

TIme to go back to the gym. For real this time.

It’s been a few years since I’ve been “Crazy Gym Lady.” And I’ve NEVER been “Eat Healthy Lady.”  I figured that everything I knew about fitness was probably outdated, and I’d probably cause serious damage without professional help, so I broke down and hired a trainer.

Have you ever had a trainer? I highly recommend one… about as much as I recommend sticking a fork in your eyeball. At first glance, she seemed harmless enough; a tall, lean blonde, perky but not annoyingly so, with a warm smile and pleasant voice. Until you sign your name on the dotted line. Then she owns your ass, and she has every intention of reshaping it into something more aesthetically pleasing to her standards.

There were simply too many moments in the conversation to write about them all. But let’s start with the food logging. I’m not a big fan of food logging, 1) because I’m lazy, 2) because I don’t care how many calories it has, if I want it, I will eat it anyway, and 3) I am lazy. And let’s not talk about the math involved… ugh. Anyway, my homework was to write down everything I ate the previous 24 hours. She told me not to change anything; eat as I normally would. So I did. When she looked at the list, her mouth dropped open.

“What did you do??”

“You said I should eat normally.”

“I meant YESTERDAY. You should have started trying to eat healthy today!”

“You didn’t specify that.”

*Note to self… never, never, never, never, NEVER antagonize your personal trainer. They have the ability to hurt you in ways you never dreamed possible.

She started to enter the daily values, and it was my turn for my jaw to drop. Did you know that one cup of pistacios have approximately 700 calories? And here I thought I was eating healthy. She finished entering the list, tore it up, and threw it in the trash can. “No more of THAT.”

I know it was just paper, but it was symbolic of throwing away every cheese danish, cheeseburger, white chocolate mocha, and anything else with flavor in that trash can. I wanted to cry. But in physical fitness, there’s no time to cry over symbolism… oh no, because there’s plenty of other ways to make you cry in earnest. And she immediately lead me to one of them.

As she described the “core” exercises, I started to wonder what the hell I was paying for. She had a little foam roller; laying on her side, she placed the roller down by her ankles, and rolled up the side of her calf, holding her body weight up with her elbow. I looked at her skeptically. “This is a sort of ’self-massage,” she explained, telling me that I would occasionally come across a knot in my muscles and I would have to hold the position for 30 seconds as the knots started to work out.

Uh huh.

Well, let me point out, this is the point where my butt and her butt are slightly different; what she made look effortless had my arms trembling beneath my weight in less than ten seconds. I rolled up my left calf, surprised to find a huge, painful knot… which she immediately caught on to.

“Stop! Hold it right there!”

I held. And held. And held. My arms were shaking again, my midsection felt like jelly, and I began to whine like a newborn puppy. After half a minute, I continued the roll, then looked at her, smug.

“That wasn’t so bad.”

“Good. Because we’re going to do it three times on the outer, inner and back of both your calves. Then the same thing with your thighs.”

By the time I hit the thighs, my arms and shoulders were screaming out in pain, but nothing like I was when I hit a knot mid-thigh. My shriek drew the attention of everyone on the floor, looking over at me with curiosity. My trainer just waved them off.

“It’s nothing. She’s just a whiner.”

And so it begins….

I tend to get in a hurry. A lot. And when things don’t go my way, well, I bail and look for the next instant-gratification moment.

Because I hate to wait.

I’m starting to realize, though, that there’s truth in all those highly annoying clichés; you know, those ones that make you grit your teeth when someone wants to give you helpful advice? Like:

Yesterday, while I was at work, my sister-in-law came to pick up the kittens. I was slightly saddened at the prospect of not having a house full of preciouscutesweetness when I came home, but I know that preciouscutesweetness grows up into crapsonyourlivingroomcarpet, and I’ve already got two of those.

I walked into the bathroom where the kittens were housed and flipped on the light, amazed to see that she had not only cleaned the floor, but washed and put away the towels, and even scrubbed the toilet.  Alex stood behind me as I stood still for a moment, amazed at how thoughtful this woman was… when I heard a small, distinct sound from behind Alex’s bath toy box.

“Mew!”

“Oh, crap…” I uttered.

“Crap,” Alex repeated…

“Don’t say that!” I barked as I moved the box to find a tiny gray kitten looking up at me with terrified blue eyes. As I lifted it gently, it cried loudly. “MEW!”

I sighed as I pulled out my phone… was this a clever ploy to get me to keep one? But since they have not been weaned from their mother, I knew she must have just missed one. All weekend, I caught myself counting them to make sure they were all there; it can happen. I could tell the frightened kitten was starving, because it kept digging it’s piercing little kitty teeth into my finger.

“Stop it!” I said through clenched teeth, holding the tiny gray furball in front of me.

“MEW!” he answered in defiance.

We ended up taking the tiny stowaway with us to the park, where Alex’s uncle handled the trade-off. But before he showed up, the small pile of gray fur nuzzled down in the crook of my elbow and fell asleep.  As I looked up at Alex playing on the playground, I thought about how quickly time has passed, and how it seems like yesterday when she was curled up against me much the same way as the kitten was now.

How quickly they grow up.

“How was school today, baby?”

“It was okay… I was just bad and Ms. Andrea told me I had to go to time out, but I cried and I didn’t have to.”

“You didn’t have to go into time out?”

“No. Sometimes you just have to cry a little like that and then you just don’t have to go to time out.”

As the political debates rage on from both the left and the right, each seeking to besmirch the other’s morals and values, I’ve decided to take a stand for what I believe in.

I will be attending one of the many tea parties in Houston today. I will not be attending because I hate Obama, because I’m racist, because I’m anti-Semitic, or any other of the number of reasons that the ultra-liberal side of the media is painting the protestors as.

I am not a card-carrying member of the NRA, but I plan on becoming one since my home was broken into; the district I live in is horribly understaffed and underpaid.  Perhaps if my tax dollars were spent on law enforcement, my neighborhood would be safer.

I do not approve of a lot of the images that my child is bombarded with on television, but rather than infringe on the rights of others to watch it, I simply turn it off (or Tivo so Mommy can watch later.) If the video games are too violent, I don’t allow them in my home. If I know they are in the homes of others that are out of my control, I plan on teaching my child the difference between right and wrong. I do not need a government agency to make that decision for me; I’m perfectly capable of making it myself.

I do not mind if you want to save the Salt Marsh Mouse. I don’t care if you want to research the effects of swine aroma; I’m sure that projects like this *do* make a difference in this world, and help some group that desparately needs that help.

I, however, do not wish to foot the bill for them.

It amazes how many people jump up and down over a document they have allowed the press to chop up and spoon-feed you. Have you read it yourself? I read the stimulus bill. I agree with some projects, I disagree with others, but it is my belief that Congress members who want support these projects should put their campaigning skills to work in their own districts and stop shoving their hands into my pockets. Start a charity. Have a fund-raiser (I hear those Congress-types are good at that stuff. If you can raise millions of dallars for YOURSELF, then obviously your skills of persuasion are remarkable.) Then I can CHOOSE where I’d like my money to go. But right now, my pockets are running a little light for these forced charity donations, and I know a few people who are in the same boat that I am.

It bothers me that I am painted as a right-wing activist for wanting to attend this event. It’s not about a political party; it’s about the fact that I am sick of watching ridiculously wasteful government spending, and now they are holding out their hand saying, “Give me more!”

No, sir. Where I come from, we take care of our belongings, we clean our plates,  we work hard and we save for a rainy day. To me, it is a sad state of affairs when my inbox is full of “government employee” jokes. It’s sad, because there’s a measure of truth in it. Purge out the laziness in a few departments, and you’ll save that freaking mouse, I promise you. I can point you to a few agencies if you need help figuring out where to start.

So I am standing up to say stop wasting my money, and stop putting the burden on my daughter’s generation. I am showing my daughter that I have values, and how to believe in them. I am showing my daughter that sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in, and sometimes, people will say mean things simply because they do not agree with you. I am teaching her to hold her head high, do not sink to that level, and do not back down if the issue at hand means something to you.

And if she doesn’t learn anything from this endeavor, I hope she at least learns that apathy gets you no where. …

“No one is ever going to hire you with all the crap you put on the Internet.”

“I have to believe that hard work, skill, and honesty mean something in this world.”

(hysterical laughter)

There’s certain milestones that one has to reach before moving on to the next level; today I made it through one. I had to go to my old home to pick up my daughter. The home that I picked out with my ex-husband, the home I intended on staying in for many years to come… the home that he now inhabits with his new wife and family.

I knew I couldn’t do this by myself. In all actuality, I’d done it once before on Christmas Day, but I sent my father to the door… I didn’t know how to do this myself, so I asked the only person in Houston that I trust with that level of vulnerability. I asked the BF.

Most men would probably run the other direction when they see the baggage that I carry… but strangely enough, he understands it. Perhaps it’s our parallel lives, perhaps it’s our warped senses of humor, perhaps it’s just the unique connection that we share. Either way, he was there for me, and I more appreciative than words can begin to descibe.

It’s strange to pull up to the house you used to live in. Nothing on the front of it has changed; even the rusty Texas star still sits on the front porch, never hung, never moved. The daylillies I planted were shooting their bloom stalks high; I used to love when they would open and reveal their vibrant colors, signaling the end of another winter.It was almost as if I was stuck in a moment in time, taken back to the day I’d planted them.

I stood rooted to the driveway for a moment, the memories flooding back… none of them were happy ones. It is hard to think of this as anything other than “my house,” but there was no joy in that thought. Before I realized he was even out of the car, the BF walked past me towards the back gate in the direction of The X’s voice. I didn’t want to walk back there; I knew what I would see would make me angry, but it was too late. So I peeked my head around and was promptly greeted by my ex-stepson.

This is knife number one. I miss that kid more than words can express sometimes. I’ve never been prevented from seeing him, but it has never been encouraged either. The excuse was “I’m protecting him,” from “all your drama.” That never really flew with me; PBug knew about TOW before I did, and I believe the truth is he didn’t want the kid to spill the beans before he got the ink on the divorce papers. Had I known the true circumstances of our separation, we both know I wouldn’t have been so congenial.  I will never forgive the X for putting his child in the position to lie to me about another woman. It was selfish and cruel. But it is the past now… and it doesn’t seem to have done any more damage than the rest of it all. Thank goodness children are resilient.

The second knife was the backyard, which I’d heard about, but did not want to see. There, in the space that I’d landscaped perfectly in my head, sat a new patio, a new pool… this from a man who never wanted a pool, who constantly complained about cost, and maintenance, and what a wasteful endeavor they were to have. He would never even entertain the idea with me, yet with her, it was done under the span of two years.

Wow.

The third, and less painful knife, was exactly as I expected. Curt, quick and sharp replies… and being totally ignored by EW3. Again. I don’t know why I come to expect anything less; the funny thing is, it’s like he’s a completely different person when she’s around. When she’s not, we can have a civil, almost friendly conversation, but if she’s there, it’s almost as if he feels obliged to put on a “I hate my ex-wife” show. It bothers me, especially when I’ve extended the olive branch to the woman who essentially destroyed my family. If I can let it go, then damn, woman, you can too. Say hello for once.

It was this very moment that I realized where my lack of self-esteem comes from. It was an epiphany; he was just one in a very long line of men (not that long, that sounded really bad) who swore that I was the greatest thing that ever hapened to them, only to be replaced in record time. It wasn’t just the X, it was all of them. Men who told me I was the only one. Men who swore their life to me. Men who told me that they’d never met anyone like me, and couldn’t imagine life without me.

Men who found other women, usually before the door was even closed behind me.

It is the root of all that’s wrong with me. It is the heart of my trust issues; how can I believe anything that anyone ever says to me when it comes to love? My whole concept of love is deeply flawed in every way… and the realization was like a brick was lifted from my heart.

Love was standing next to me.

Love was the man who has seen me through some of the roughest times I ever thought possible, through that dark period that I didn’t know how to get through. Love forgave my insanity. Love forgave my horrible mistakes. Love held my hand when I needed him too, and love kicked me in the ass when it needed to be kicked. Love didn’t sugarcoat the issues, love didn’t hide things from me, love didn’t say “love” just for the sake of saying it. Love knew the value of communication, and even in the times that I didn’t know how to communicate, love found a way through.

Love is deeply rooted in reality, yet finds some way to transcend it… Love takes me to places that I didn’t think I would ever go.

This is different. This is different from anything I’ve ever experienced or known. I don’t know what will become of it, and I don’t know where the future will take us, but I know, in my heart, I am finally free of the pain that’s haunted me for so long. This was it… this was the last step. Standing in front of that house, in that moment that I’d built up for so long in my head… it was over and done. There’s nothing left to fear. There’s no more knives left to be turned in my heart. There’s no reason left for anger. I’ve come to expect the worst, and the worst is still a million times better than what some other women have to endure.

If this BF turns out to be like the rest, well… I can’t waste the beautiful gift I’ve been given worrying about the “what if’s.” For now, I will just live in each moment as it passes, making decisions that may not be easy, but knowing in my heart that they are the right ones.

I am not the same person anymore. I think that is a very good thing.

My sister-in-law was heading out of town for the weekend, and asked if I would watch her current foster kids; a group of five kittens and their calico mother. Thinking I would have Alex part of the time, I agreed, but as things turn out, she’s spent more time with her father.

There is nothing that can erase a bad day like coming home to a house full of kittens. They are so ridiculously cute that the tension of the day melts away as you watch them swat at one another with tiny, unsure paws. (I think my sister-in-law is trying to convince me to foster animals. I think if that is her plan, it’s working.) It just kills me to think if someone hadn’t taken in these tiny little creatures, that they would die simply because they existed. As each little personality emerges, I marvel at how much I’ve changed as a person… watching the mother tend lovingly to each baby means more now than it did before I became a mother.

In the meantime, I’ve had some truly interesting photo shoots. There’s some merit in that “herding cats” cliché. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Or just wait until they go to sleep.