A TRUE STORY

After savasana.

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap

Cindy woke to the chiming sound of her alarm clock. She rolled to her side, maneuvered her arm around the dog curled up at her hip and turned the alarm clock off. Then Cindy slid that dog over so she could get out of bed. Cindy always got up out of her bed with mindfulness, first coming to a seated position and then placing both feet firmly onto the floor. Feeling her feet pressing into the rug helped to bring her out of dreamland and into the day. From here, Cindy stood and made her way to the bathroom. She stood there staring at her naked reflection in the full length mirror. Her first thought was of how they really should not have replaced those burnt out bulbs with new LED bulbs. The new bulbs made the bathroom too bright and every thing too clear. Her skin was almost translucent in this lighting and she could see her blue veins well enough to trace them. The bathroom was too bright. 

Cindy leaned forward to get a better look at the new pimple forming on her chin. Her eyes then caught sight of a red handprint impressed on the space between the tip of her sternum and her bellybutton. She cocked her head to the side with a curios expression. Cindy knew the imprint must be from sleeping on her hand, yet it was so distinct and detailed. She must of have been laying on her hand for most of the night. Cindy traced the fingers and noticed that even the lines in her palm were noticeable in the impression. She frowned at her reflection, at the hand print that seemed to accentuate her belly. Cindy could see that the stress of the last couple of months had taken it's toll. Her belly seemed bloated and flabbier then she wanted it to be. In the past few weeks, she had started a nightly ritual of placing her hands on the flabby part and willing the fat to dissipate into thin air. That's probably where the hand print came from. She had fallen asleep while waving an imaginary wand. 

Of course, Cindy never believed that willing her fat away would actually work. She just needs to step up her workouts and eat less food. She's working on both of those things, but Cindy is also very aware of the probability of weight loss versus age. She has noticed the signs signaling the changes to come. Those signs are equal parts relief and depressing. Today, as she stares at her reflection, Cindy feels older than forty one. More like eight one. In fact, she's sure she can feel the twinges of arthritis in her left knee. Cindy shakes her head in an attempt to clear out this sudden old tired feeling that has come upon her. She would not fall for it. She would not listen to the hateful girl whispering in her ear. If Cindy were the type of girl to believe, she could say that handprint was placed there by the Gods. They have placed it there as an affirmation that this belly is beautiful. They have placed that handprint there to remind her that the most famous Renaissance artists painted and sculpted women with such bellies. Cindy looked herself in the eye and thought "Too bad I'm not the type of girl to believe." 

With that last thought, she turned and stepped into the shower to start her day. 

THE STATE OF THIS BODY

Do I need to go on a diet?

"Do I need to go on a diet?"

I had my yearly women's health exam the other day and no, I still haven't made an appointment to follow up on my cholesterol. I did get the regular blood pressure/height/ weight vitals and all of those except one looked good except one. I bet you can guess which one made me cringe a whole lot. Let me tell just how dumb it is that I am slightly depressed about my weight. I now weigh what I did when I was with Chris. Exactly. When I reached a hundred and seventy five pounds after being one ninety, one eighty, I thought this was the smallest I would ever be and I was happy. I was content with that weight. I was even comfortable in that weight. I felt good about myself. Now I go to put on a pair of jeans and the either won't button at all or they are tight and uncomfortable and I get mad because those jeans were not cheap. 

I've taken to wearing pants I can do yoga in all the time. In fact, I was in Target the other day looking at pants and the first thing I asked myself was "Does it have an elastic waste band?" The second thing I asked myself was "Can I do you yoga in them?" The answer to both of those seemed like a yes, so I bought the pants without trying them on. They're wide legged pants made of a light denim. I tried them on when I got home. Then I realized I'd just bought the most unflattering pair of pants for my body. I said "fuck it!" and put on a flowing top, which just made me look like a beach ball. I don't care because I got on my mat and they were very comfortable while running though all the sun salutations. 

Which brings me to my next point or tangent or gripe. I'm not sitting around like a lump all day. I've been wearing this Up band, tracking my steps and sleep and sometimes even my food, for over a year now. The goal is ten thousand steps and for the most part I crush that goal with over twelve thousand steps a day. I am on my yoga mat daily and I even push myself to do things like forearm plank for a whole sixty seconds at a time. I do four of those at least! I can walk up four flights of stairs without wheezing or something on my body hurting. I don't know about five because I never have a need to go up to the fifth floor. The point is, this body is fit. It's strong. It can bend itself into a pretzel. There is nothing wrong with this body. Except for the ten extra pounds of fat centered around my belly button. 

When I told Michael about my weight, he said it's because I'm no longer single. "What? You want to go back to eating like you did when you were single?" He's under the impression that all I ever ate for dinner where sleeves of crackers, which isn't true. I cooked evening meals for myself so I'd at least have a healthy lunch the next day. Really, that hasn't changed. The only difference I can see between eating when I was single and now is that I probably eat more than two meals on Saturday and Sundays. I don't understand how not being single means adding ten pounds to my body. Maybe I'm just fooling myself into thinking that I should be any smaller. Maybe it's time to let go of the things in my closet that are too small and just accept that this is the size I am. I was happy there at one point in my life. The whole "I was happy" part sort of echoes in my brain. Then, because I am my own worst critic, I call myself a loser for giving up. I fit in those clothes once! By golly, I can fit my ass into them again. And if I toss them and go up a size, what's stopping me from going up another size and another? What if I finally manage to get it all under control and I tossed all my size smaller pants? Then I have to go buy more pants. it is the dumbest slippery slope. 

I hate pants and I'm just about over this Upband tracking device. 

I SHOULD WRITE SOMETHING

Spooky doodle

elephant_soap's photo on Instagram

I don't want to neglect this space during this whole NaNoWriMo thing, but I'm having a hard time partitioning my brain. We had a pretty nice weekend. We took the Cabbage trick-or-treating, we ran errands on Saturday, and I spent some time at Terry's decorating sugar skulls with Heather and the boys. Michael let the Cabbage stay up as long as she wanted to Saturday night in celebration of the time change. I came home from Terry's and the Cabbage was in bed, but still talking. That was around 11:30. I did my final relaxation voodoo on her and there was no more talking. 

Speaking of final relaxation voodoo, ask me how many times I've been on my yoga mat in the last week. Zero times. My mat is under my desk at work, in it's carrying bag and has not seen the light of day in over a week. I feel my ass molding to this chair as I type, growing exponentially with my inactivity. Even treadmill time was sketchy last week. It's recommended that you take at least 10,000 steps a day. I think I'm averaging something like 4,000 steps a day and even that feels like I'm exaggerating in my favor. Here's the biggest confession of all. I ate meat.

A couple of weeks ago, Michael bought some beef jerky from a fancy butcher shop that looked very much like Mike's beef jerky. All Oklahoma people will know this beef jerky. It's cured with crac. When he got it, I said something about Mike's beef jerky being something I would eat now just to taste it because it was so good and so Michael tore off a tiny piece of jerky and handed it to me. I ate it. It was delicious. I'm not going to lie. It was just that tiny little piece for taste. But then yesterday, my hot-n-sour soup at the Chinese place had bits of pork in it. I didn't notice until I had finished half the bowl. I shrugged and ate the rest. My stomach started hurting as we pulled into the IKEA parking garage. I may not have cared too much about the pork in my soup, but my stomach sure did.  

In fact my stomach is noticing EVERYTHING now. We're unhappy with each other and I need to try a little harder to mend things between us. Like no more meat. If I'm going to commit to writing every day, I need to commit to 10,000 or more steps every day. Five thousand words equals an hour on the yoga mat. If I make an effort now, at the beginning of the holiday season that should be called Gluttony, maybe making a fresh start in the new year won't be so difficult. I've set my timer to go off every twenty minutes, signalling me to get up and move around. If I could fix a cattle prod to timer, I'd probably do that. Anything to get my growing gut and butt up and moving.

Timer just went off....gotta walk.