For What Reason?

For what reason do I not go to the gym? For what reason do I not walk my dog more? For what reason do I not call my girlfriends more? For what reason do I not eat more vegetables? More fruit? Drink more water and less coffee?

For what reason do I manage to get a good amount of sleep? I also save money. I shop wisely. I do nice things for my husband. I read books. I cook dinner and rarely do take-out. I keep up with the laundry and the dishes. I call my mom regularly. Go me!

I do all these things. They are important. Why don’t I do the other things? They are important too. Is it that there just is not enough time in the day? Is it that I really don’t want to do them, but I just think I should say that I do want to do them? None of this seems to be the answer. I really, really, really want to be a size 6 again. So why don’t I go to the gym more? I really, really, really want my dog to have a very happy doggy existence, so why don’t I take him on more walks?

The other day I was talking with my friend. We were discussing the gym (she rarely goes either) and I said, “I think maybe I want to be fat. I must want to be. Why else wouldn’t I go to the gym?”

Oh, but it’s just not that simple is it? Why are we motivated to do some of these things and not others even though we want them all to get done, really? We want the positive effects of those things getting done. I want to be skinny, rich, smart, and loved. So go the gym and stop taking Sportikus’s love for granted! Call your girls and cook some kale! The other things – pat on the back!

“Just do it.”

Boy, I hate that slogan. I hate it when I complain and a friend says, “Well, do it, then.” It’s never that easy. We’ve all got those things we get done and for which our friends envy us. We’ve all got those things our friends get done for which we envy them. Nancy always gets to the gym. Lea always keeps in touch. I should too. But Lea doesn’t always work out and Nancy doesn’t keep in touch much anymore, but I know she’d love to. Do I just accept that we all have those things on the mental should list that are there but are never going to happen? Or do I just keep putting them there hoping that one day it will trigger action?

In all this self-questioning I have realized I need a new approach. I need to just realize that I’m good at getting some things done and not others. Instead of me trying to psycho-analyze myself and come down to some ultimate answer of why I do what I do and don’t do what I don’t, I’m going to instead try to fix the problem. “Just do it” is not a tangible enough plan.

I need a plan that I can work with and assess the results of. The goal is this: I will prioritize the things I would like to do or should do and make specific plans instead of, mental should lists. It may be that something just gets bumped off the list because the number of hours in the day really are limited and I make myself stop worrying about it. I need to think strategically. I need to plan by day, week, and month. This is an experiment. I’ll keep you posted.

Mistaken

Yesterday I helped a friend move. When I arrived, he had just started packing. I knew it was going to be a long day. I love this guy a ton. We’ll call him Joe, here. He’s younger than Dave and me. He’s 24, I think.

At about hour six it started raining. Dave finally got off work and met us and started helping too. At about hour nine the rain was still pounding, Dave and I were going back to the friend’s house to pack stuff up while the friend was off picking up a new desk. The friend’s roommate had showed up at the apartment and as we walk in I say, “Hi.” And he says, “Hi, are you Joe’s mom?”

I freeze and stare with a gaping mouth. Dave says something like, “Are you serious?” My eyes and tongue ignite and I rapidly fire, “Yep. I had him when I was six.”

Holy shit.

Boobs

My husband and I recently had our wedding party. We were married in February while upstate on vacation. Because our dog could not legally be our witness, the justice of the peace who married us brought his wife along. We were married at the base of a small mountain and afterwards we climbed that mountain with Sportikus and took pictures when we got to the top. You don’t have to worry about what your boobs look like on your wedding day when you are wearing four layers of clothing.

We had our wedding party five months later and it was great. We had great food, friends, and family. While planning the wedding, I worried about my boobs more than anything. It’s not as easy to find dresses that look great on me as it used to be. I finally chose a yellow summer dress. It was a really tight dress with spaghetti straps so I decided these D cups could go braless.

The only mirror in our room was five feet above the wall. Since I am 5’2″ it wasn’t helping me at all. I decided to go to my friend’s room and use her mirror. I am so glad I did. One nipple was staring back at me in the dead center of the dress! It took some rearranging, but I got it lined up with the seam and went downstairs. I have to say, the dress was tight enough that I pulled it off. There were no boob blunders.

It’s only been in the last five years or so that I’ve had to worry about boob blunders. Somehow in my mid twenties my breasts decided that a small C wanted to be a big D overnight. Now I have three-pencil boobs. I started thinking of breast size in terms of pencils in high school. I went to a public boarding school for the last two years of high school. I remember one night that a group of us were discussing our boobs. I don’t know how the conversation started but I know we discussed nipple size, color, shape and texture. And, of course, we discussed cup size. One girl showed us that her boobs could hold a pencil all on their own. I found this surprising because her breasts were in the A cup camp. But, they were more droopy and skinny. I decided to try and while I was in the B cup camp, my right boob perked enough to hold nothing and my left could hold one if I arched my back down a bit. I know this is an interesting way for us to discover our bodies, but I like this memory. It wasn’t a moment of judging. It was just young women understanding that bodies are all unique – no two boobs alike.

After the wedding party dress experience I started thinking about this memory I have discovered that I can hold not one, but three pencils under my breasts standing up straight. I can even hold my arms above my head and still hold one! They’ve changed, but they’re mine; there’s no point in not loving them – even if I now have to pay attention to where my nipples land in my party dress.