Acceptance

Today, Wednesday, was a lovely day. Give or take. Actually, it was nuts. But that's fine. But then...not so much nuts. Clara and I headed off to the gym this morning for Body Combat. That went well. Well, about as well as it is ever going to go for this old girl! There were a couple of "space invaders"...those who just manage to BE in my space. There was the jolly green giant...a HUGE man who managed to take up about four times as much space as anyone else and had less than 1/4 of the coordination of anyone else. Plus he was huge. So....huge, uncoordinated, kicking, punching, chopping guy gets the space. Then there was Granny Get Out of My Way...she was an older lady doing her thing there in my corner today. Only her thing was at about half the speed of the class. And no matter where I repositioned myself...somehow she managed to STAY directly in front of me. Obviously not one to take social cues...like for instance...if the whole class is stepping forward with a great big Hi-YAH! kind of kick aimed directly at where your rear end is planted...then you too might want to step forward with them. No...not a cue taker! So between the giant and my other slow moving buddy there...it was a lovely workout. Sometimes I wish there were zones in the workout room. Like, I don't know...maybe a turbo zone, for those who are just on hyper speed, and maybe a turtle zone...for those who approach their exercise at a more leisurely pace. Perhaps a "dance to the beat of your own drum" zone for those who have NO rhythm and can't find the beat to save their lives. And then of course...I'd like to have my own zone. Slightly larger and more spacious than the other zones where I have a nice amount of personal space to operate in. But hey...that's just my vision. The gym of the future. Anyway. Survived Combat. HIt the showers. Headed to Jenny's to swim and play. By this time I have talked to Maxwell about 3 times in the morning since I left. He is obviously bored and wanting some entertainment (of which I was not a part of on this day). I would chat with him a minute or two and then tell him I would talk to him later. But his arm was hurting...so he called me. Then it was still hurting. So he called me again. I told him to take some tylenol...and 18 minutes later he called again to tell me it wasn't working. GRRRR. I reminded him that we were on a play date. A short time later I got another call from him saying that he had tried calling me and I didn't answer my phone and that he had heard the door sliding open and he thought he saw the shadow of a man in our yard and when I didn't answer he just headed out down the street knocking on all of our neighbor's doors to get some help. This is the part where I should mention that my Max can be a bit of a drama king. And that is putting it very, very nicely. Needless to say, I was a bit alarmed. So I proceeded to ask him about this. And the more I talked with him the more unhappy I became. I asked him why the door was unlocked. He says he just let the dog out. Was the dog still outside when this happened I ask him? Yes. Hmmmm. Was dog barking? No. Hmmmm. Well, what about this shadow? He tells me it was a little man. A little man? What did this little man look like, I ask him. Well...he didn't actually see him...he just saw a shadow. A shadow? Hmmmm. But it was hard to see because the BLINDS WERE CLOSED! Okay. So basically, Max just managed to freak himself out and convince himself that some "shadow" man was coming to visit. That would not really have been problematic for me. EXCEPT...that the neighbor he went to just happens to be married to an Oro Valley policeman. So she called him, who called for backup to meet him here and the two of them searched the house to make sure no "shadow men" had taken over. Since there is SO much crime here in Oro Valley the police response tends to be rapid and huge. For all I know the entire freaking SWAT team was probably crawling in and through my house thanks to my panicked son and his jumpy nature. So if you noticed helicopters, police cars, rescue squads, etc climbing over the area today...that would have been my house. Yep. So guess who WON'T be hanging out here by himself anymore! I informed him this afternoon that his independence has now officially been cut off and that from here on out he will be joining me bright and early at the gym each day and any and everywhere else I happen to need to go.

Swimming at Jenny's was great. Though now I don't really like my house anymore because I like hers. She has all the warm cherry woods and the hardwood floors and the crown molding and so many things that scream of other places down south and back east! It was bright and warm and her windows don't look directly into other people's windows. And she has a yard to die for, It's just huge and wonderful! The best thing was that we had pizza for lunch. I SOOOO love pizza. Like...pizza is my love language. Never, ever get it. Chris doesn't like it. So it's extra special when I DO get it. So my day at Jenny's will be forever and ever etched as a warm and wonderful memory now!

After Jenny's I came home and had a nice conversation with another friend. I told her about my day and how this week I have had the repeated honor of getting to hang out with very young, curvy, fit, super gorgeous (but did I mention young?) supermodel type gals, and then today got to hang out with two other young, curvy, super fit gals...which just emphasized to me YET AGAIN how NOT young, lean and fit this particular gal is. Oh, I've got some curves. Only my curves are super insulated and padded with some fairly impressive bulges right about now. It was fairly depressing. As I was lamenting over all of this, this friend's words of wisdom piped up and she tells me that the sooner I accept that I am not 20 anymore the happier I am going to be. That it only gets worse from here on out and that there is little or no good news for my next 4 years. It was a regular ray of sunshine conversation. And I'm thinking..."Wow. So MUCH to look forward to!" And then she talks some more about accepting who you are now...where you are. Then she asks me exactly what it's going to be that I have to accept to get on with it. And I'm like....WHAT? And so the rest of the afternoon I have had all of these crazy thoughts going round and round in my head. And I'm like...I don't WANT to be 40. My body seems to be all on board with the idea. It's practically trying to lay down and die already...but I don't FEEL like I'm coming up on 40. And I don't want to LOOK like I am either. They say you are only as old as you feel. I definitely don't feel 40. Granted, I don't feel 20 either, but definitely not 40. I think 30. That's where I feel it. Now I just need to figure out how to get this old body on board! Long story short, in the presence of all of this deep and troubling thought cycle I turned to the tried and true therapy....CLEANING. I strapped on my iPod and cranked it up LOUD. And I set off to clean and in turn sort out my brain jumbles. Can I just say that it took nearly 4 hours? I cleaned toilets and sinks and tubs and showers. I swept floors, I cleaned them on my hands and knees. I tackled laundry and I cleaned glass. I did dishes and scrubbed down countertops. I even ironed for pete's sake. And after all of that thought sorting my house was pretty darned clean and I had made sense of things. And in the end...I still don't want to be 40. Because I WANT to be 30. So there. So this acceptance thing is not working out too well really for me. Maybe later. But not tonight. Tonight I still have hope that I will whip this bag of bones into shape. That this butt will rise up out of the dust and put on a decent presentation in my jeans. That these triceps will firm up and I will be able to put parmesan cheese on my food with the shaker and not just die of embarassment from the wind currents my "flap" are creating. I still have hope that these abs will stop trying to mimic the michelin man and will fall into some semblance of flatness again. I have no idea why all of that stays forefront in my mind or why it's so important. I only know that tonight...I wish I was on the closer to 30 side of the hill instead of the 40 side. Tomorrow is a new day. Who knows what that will hold! Maybe acceptance? Maybe.