I’m Glad I’m a Grown-Up: February’s Last Thought

I loved college.  I grabbed a hold of that experience, held on and wrung out every bit of fun that was possible for years – including summer sessions.  Even better than college was AFTER college.  After a year of living for the weekend (and going back to college) on a small island, I spent 5 years living in Maine’s largest city, being a bar district regular, and reigning as the Princess of Portland.

I physically moved on.  I ended up living in a couple large cities, and I’ve had a fun time in my 30s. I didn’t rip it up like the 20s, but it was pretty great. Sure, my alcohol tolerance isn’t what it was, my feet couldn’t take a whole night of dancing, and I called a cab instead of walking home.  My husband has told me, repeatedly, that I’m living in the past, too obsessed with college and my 20s.

I admit, I still keep in touch with friends I’ve had from those times.  We have more than enough #tbt dirt on each other.  Unfortunately we’ve also bonded over the loss of some of our mutual friends – taken from us much too young.  I go home usually once a year to see my parents.  My trips end up including visits with friends and my favorite places.  I like to watch what some people think of as “teen” shows.  But, honestly, either I watch because I like the actors playing the parents, or it’s about vampires.

Not bad.

It doesn’t hurt that I still can pass for being in my 20s.  I love getting carded.  I feel better than I did when I was in my 20s.  I’ve mastered dressing better and I’ve rehabbed the mistakes I made in over plucking my eyebrows.  I have some really awesome jewelry now including 3 wedding rings.

After a conversation on Twitter with a friend from college I came to the realization that without seeing it happen – I grew up. Despite my husband’s protests, my love of 90s music, and the fact that I get off the airplane in Portland and go straight to Margaritas – I’m a grown up and I’m okay with it.

I don’t miss the craziness and uncertainty of that time in my life.  I’m glad I no longer am drawn to drama.  I’m happy with who I am.  I like things about myself, even when I’m striving to improve them.  I have advice to offer women younger than me, because there is a lot of thing I wish I had know when I was in that spot.  I don’t envy the young anymore, I just want to see them have an awesome life and enjoy themselves as much as I do.

It doesn’t bother me that my doctor, hair stylist and boss are younger than me.  I don’t view age as a peg of authority anymore, I now see it as expertise and accomplishment – and we aren’t all going to have the same at any age.

I looked up to women my current age when I was in my 20s as surrogate big sisters and I hope others do the same with me now.  But I dreaded getting older and growing up even if it made me like those women.  I didn’t want to get boring!

I’m not boring.  I love my life and every experience I’ve had.  I’m looking forward to the ones I’m going to have.  I might end up with gray hairs and some wrinkles, but it’s going to be okay when it happens.

Failure

I’m a total failure at most everything I’ve done. Are you a failure?

I listened to a great lady speak this morning about how she’s felt like a failure most of her life. I can totally relate.

I got fired from my last job. Failure. I’m not paying half our household bills, failure. I didn’t finish my Master’s degree. Failure. My boyfriends in college wouldn’t commit. Failure. My grades went downhill in high school. Failure. I got cut from sports teams. Failure. I didn’t get in to the science program or the writing program I applied to when I was younger. Failure. I didn’t get the promotion I wanted. Failure. I could go on. I’m in this awesome Beachbody team and the majority of my friends think this is a dumb pyramid scheme. Failure. And they think that these workouts I do at home are dumb and you have to go to the gym to workout. Failure.

One last one. I haven’t lost as much weight as I have wanted. For all the work I do, I should be at goal already, right? I’m a failure.

Yeah, sure I have had some setbacks. And sure, sometimes I feel a little like a fraudulent health coach since I’m doing all the actions and yet, I’m not a shining beacon of accomplishment.

But Chelsea said something this morning that stuck with me. Failures are bruises, not tattoos.

Any failure I’ve had in the past lead to me here in this moment. And I’m someone who likes where I am now. Things happen in life and I know that there’s failure to come, but I’m sure there is some success in there for me, too

Catch-22 Pounds

One of the things I keep being the most surprised about as I continue to change my life and my habits is that it pretty much impacts my relationships with everyone.

I really thought this was all about me, and if it was a relationship thing – it was my relationship with myself or my relationship with food.  I’m now seeing that the whole book I thought I had written was erased and I’m starting over.  My friends and family are still my friends and family, but there is a definite shift.

I thought once I lost some weight and was more confident, I’d be more social.  After all, I have new clothes to show off, right?  Not exactly.

It started out that I had to tell friends “no” when it came to Happy Hours.  I was working out with my Boot Camp, or I was just leaving Boot Camp and smelled terrible.  Or sometimes it was that I wasn’t drinking anymore.  Sometimes I was just too tired to drag my ass to a bar!  But I wanted to hang out with my friends.  I tried to make things work when I could.  I had a lot of guilt around it.  But I have to tell you, they were all pretty awesome.  Whenever I would try to apologize for being MIA they wouldn’t hear of it.

Another weird thing, that’s related, is people are just ridiculously proud of me.  From people I knew in Kindergarten, to people I’ve known for a couple of months – I keep getting compliments.  I’m learning how to take them a little better, but it’s still pretty weird for me.  And my gorgeous friends?  They tell me that I INSPIRE THEM.  Which still just makes my head spin because I can’t imagine how that works, but I’ll take it because it’s just pretty darn cool.

So who do I hang out with?  I have a new group of people in my life.  New friends who all work out with me, or near me, or beside me, whatever.  I have my whole Beachbody Team, my upline, my Facebook friends, people I met at Summit.  If I need someone to hike with or vent to, I have plenty of options I didn’t have a year ago.  I also now train with this guy.  He’s a Nurse and a Marine, and he has me doing insane things that I never would have done before.  He has a great way to push me and get me out of my comfort zone, but at the same time, I know I’m well taken care of.  He and his wife and kids have become yet another West Coast family to me.  And now he’s letting my intern with him 3 days a week while I try to make health and fitness the center of my world. 

I’m still very happily married, but my relationship with my husband has changed and is changing all the time with this.  Luckily for me, he’s also very interested in fitness and health.  He understands the workouts and the early morning wake ups.  Unfortunately what he doesn’t always understand is how my time and energy get diverted away from things that need to be done.  When I have a high volume week of workouts, that can mean 6 workouts a day starting at  5 AM.  I pretty much have to spend the week before preparing my LIFE to be on total hold.  All household chores pretty much stop once those workouts start.  So if there’s laundry to be done, too bad.  If there’s dishes to be washed, better get plastic.  Need to make an appointment?  Better block out some time of your day, I won’t have any.  I barely cook.  I workout, eat and sleep.  Repeat as many times as necessary.  That has taken a huge toll out of our symbiosis, and has been the source of many fights.  It doesn’t help that when I’m tired and calorie deprived I’m not exactly a reasonable person.

I’m still trying to figure this all out.  How I can still be a good friend and partner and have my workouts, too.  Some friendships may be slightly on pause since there isn’t as much going out to dinner.  Maybe I’ll continue to get more people on the road to fitness along with me.  But either way, this is something I’m doing for myself, and that’s the most important relationship of all.

Friend Makin’ Mondays: The Internet

Please come back later for a post updating my crazy 10 days in the Whole 30 program and eating Paleo. And not cheating!

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

The Internet

1. Have you ever met anyone online before meeting them in person? Yes, I have. Back in the late 90’s at my college it was a very acceptable way to meet people, through our school BBS. I’ve also met people I’ve played online games with and through my husband’s work in virtual worlds/games I met his future coworkers online before he was hired and then we met them all in person.

Here’s a dirty secret – I’ve played online games for 10 years or so. Not so much anymore, I’m kind of busy with all the other stuff real life has to offer.

2. What is your opinion on social media’s impact on our society? Does it make life better or worse? It’s both. I think that it’s great to be able to be so open, and to be able to connect so easily with people from around the world, or people you may have lost touch with. But, I have to say I’ve been absolutely shocked at the statements people make online – even if I’ve known them forever! The dark side is the veil of anonymity allows people to have no filter and no regards for the impact in what they say. I think the manners and cordialness we pay one another face to face is very valuable, and to have that stripped away is kind of heartbreaking. Is it exposing the worst of humanity? Encourgaing it to get worse? I can’t say, but it make me very uncomfortable.

3. Do you believe that it’s possible to fall in love with someone that you’ve never met in person? I don’t. I think you can learn a lot about one another without meeting, even getting past the awkwardness faster and learning important personal details that may take longer to elucidate in person. But at the end of the day, it’s chemistry and timing. And chemistry is often only a face to face thing.

4. Do you prefer to shop in stores or online? I prefer to shop in stores when possible. Online shopping makes some things much easier and sometimes cheaper to find, but I love poking around shops. Feeling items with my hands and seeing their actual size and seeing the items in context is very important.

5. What blogging platform do you use? (WordPress, Blogger, something else?) I use WordPress. I’ve played with Blogger and Tumblr, but I prefer WordPress.

6. Have you ever blogged for another site? Would you? I’ve contributed to my husband’s blog a few years ago. I’ve also written a guest post for a friend’s beauty blog after I went to a warehouse sale and took photos. Last year I contributed a column to a website dedicated to an online game. I have no problem with contributing for another blog as long as I have something to say.

7. Do you use services like Netflix and Hulu? I use Netflix. It’s a great way to catch up on TV series. It is frustrating that there are not more newer movies available for streaming. I love just being able to find a movie I’ve heard of but missed and catch it on a random night.

8. Would you prefer to get blog comments or to interact on twitter? I love blog comments because it means someone actually read what I have to say! But, I do like using Twitter for interacting. It’s way easier for me to comment back or answer a question on Twitter.

9. Do you prefer to read books or e-books? Both are fine, but unless I’m traveling, I like real books. Maybe it’s the smell.

10. Share at least one experience that you would not have had without being a blog author. Well, I’m certainly not a very notable blog author. I did miss a chance to do something cool. I was contacted on my blog to test and review a product, but I dropped the ball on that and missed out. Perhaps in the future.