Be true to your school, and let your colors fly

My grade school was my second home growing up, partly because my parents worked full-time and it offered reasonably priced before and after-school care, but I hung around mostly for the people who filled up the classes.

My school was not a traditional public school that many parents turn their noses up at for fear their child will turn out to be dangerous, uneducated, and violent with their curse words and other hoodlum habits they think are taught there (full disclosure – I fully support public schools and the school of the hard knocks, and my children will be attending said public schools, but that is another story for another day).  Rather, my school was a parochial Lutheran school set in the south side of Peoria, Illinois; a neighborhood some people avoided completely but where I found hidden gems of loveliness and beauty sprinkled throughout the tattered homes and overgrown yards, some with chained-up dogs that barked and jumped ferociously at us whenever we crossed the street to attend our weekly chapel service.  And let’s not get started on the one time there was a murderous clown roaming the streets during school hours, again, another story for another day.

Numbers, letters, learn to spell, nouns and books, and show-and-tell

My classmates and I were in it for the long haul of a nine-year relationship, learning about each other, making each other better, and helping each other along when shit got real as it often does for children and adults of all ages.  We sometimes fought, but we did it with vigor and an intensity backed by the superlative Christian morals we were fed religiously day in and day out through mid-day chapel services and hour-long religion classes that replaced lessons on evolution and natural selection with didactic on the difference between Catholocism and Lutheranism (was this really something I needed outside of playing Jeopardy?).  Looking back on this setup, I feel a bit cheated as they could have filled the time in religion class with a course on financial responsibility, how to form good habits, or a run-down on why rich people do what they do, but hindsight is 20/20 and if we are looking at the bright side of life, which I like to do, I did learn the art of storytelling in those religion classes.  

We snacked on small bits of jokes, bathed in the trends of the week (the Yo-Yo craze and sour Warhead competitions were by far my favorite), got our names on the board for talking too much or passing notes, and read stories together while we watched the clock and waited for the end of the day to arrive so we could run off and play our beloved volleyball or basketball in the state-of-the-art gym (where some of us had a revelation years later on where our offering money was truly going).  We ran twenty-five kids deep and we advanced classrooms year after year, owning a little bit more of the school as the years went by. 

I can tell that we are going to be friends

On occasion, a new kid would emerge at the start of the year, and we would hound them like a dog sniffing the butt of a new dog or a visitor in the house.  My classmates and I would perform our ceremonial pissing contest, circling them, asking them questions, and finding out why they were here and why they had not chosen to have been here the other years before.  At the end of the introduction, one or more of us would self-nominate as their buddy and help them acclimate, being their representative to break into the world of the cool kids.  We were not mean but we were protective of our own.   

One year we had a kid bring blinged-out keychains to school, which we thought was a bangin’ idea, but then he tried to sell it to us for an outrageous price of three dollars a pop.  We were eight, and the only money we had was from gritty chores or that leftover change from the ten dollars our grandparents gave us at the basketball game; we were not about to spend it on just anything.

Another year we had a girl from public school who was mature beyond her years, and you can only imagine the stir this created as we were in the thick of puberty.  The guys gravitated towards her stories and advances, and the girls, including myself, sat back and wondered if things would have been different if we had acted her way from the start.  Fortunately, most of us girls held strong to our cores and maintained our confidence without needing to sell our services; the jury is still out on how many stayed true to their colors.

Up in the mornin’ and out to school, the teacher is teachin’ the golden rule

As for me, I was an adventurous, self-conscious, energetic, and curious ten-year-old; mornings consisted of eating breakfast and watching Scooby Doo while getting ready for school.  I sang classic rock with my dad and brother on the thirty-minute commute from our home in the country, and when at school, I inhaled lessons in the classroom and utilized recess to the fullest, skipping around tree stumps, digging holes when it rained, making mudpies and branding them as Juper’s Jellies, and selling said creations them to other kids in exchange for playground treasures.  By mid-morning on any given day, you could find me in a mild tangle with one of my best friends about how they prefer to be best friends with someone else, and by afternoon you could find us bear-hugging, reconnecting our friendship necklace puzzle pieces, and sharing secrets.  My room was a shrine to the Hanson trio and I watched more rounds of Titanic and The Faculty than one would consider mentally healthy; being a ten-year-old was a supreme deal if you did not count the heavy backpack and raw knees resulting from amateur attempts to save a volleyball while crashing on that newly polished gym floor (remember where all of that offering money was going to?).

But being a ten-year-old took a quick turn that spring when Julius died.  None of us saw his departure lurking in the distance of Fate since fifth graders should not house the worries of death in their growing and expansive minds.  I cannot definitively say if we got stronger or weaker in fifth grade, but I can assure you we became more aware.

I think of that year almost every day of my life, and talking with other classmates nowadays, it appears I am not the only one.

You wake up late for school and you don’t want to go

The day Julius departed was a typical Wednesday morning, the arrival of spring teasing the Midwest as the calendar turned from a pesky F into the flowering and promising road of M-A-M.  My morning was filled with Shaggy’s nervous quips to the gang to turn the Mystery Machine around, to go munch on Scooby Snacks, and to forget about the cares of the world.  My cereal bowl sat atop the plush ottoman as it did every morning, a towel placed underneath the bowl to prevent my sloppy eating habits from becoming friends with my makeshift table, and my lower half contorted in a cheerleader sit while my eyes remained superglued to the television and my hand did a repetitive robotic motion and shoveled Cinnamon Toast Crunch from the bowl to my mouth. 

Minutes into the show, the phone rang, which was unusual as it was years before telemarketers figured out a way to get rich off of phone calls.  As a nosy, curious, loud, and assertive ten-year-old, I popped like a prairie dog coming out of a burrow to answer any phone call; it usually meant a great story with whoever had the guts to call up our wild house or a deep chat with one of my wise grandparents, conversations I readily engaged and hoped for.  But on that particular morning, instead of taking action to remove myself from the tube and get in on the phone scoop, my dad answered the phone, taking the call in the bedroom before he came down the hallway to make our descent to school from our house buried thick in the outskirts of city life.  

My mind knew his footsteps sounded different that day, but my brain did not compute it until hours later.   

My dad appeared in the living room and stood there, defenseless against his own mind, being sucked into a black hole but showing nothing but strength, not exactly sure how to start talking and wavering on whether or not to say anything at all.  He seemed sick.  

“There was an accident today at your classmate Julius’s house, and something bad happened.  There was a fire and they weren’t able to get him out in time, and he did not make it.”

Make it.  Did not make it.  What did that mean?  Did he forget to come to school that day?  Was he sick from the fire?  Did his family need our help?  Millions of thoughts raced through my mind, none of them the truth.  My heart tried to keep up with my mind, my breathing got faster, and my head pulsated and felt heavy.  

“He died?” It felt like an alien had overtaken my body and spoke these words for me.  I was an outsider to myself, not yet computing that death was a possibility for children too.  

“Yes.”

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? 

I was not sure what was happening. Kids were immortal, or at least it seemed like that when we were flying off of the swingsets and landing in a perfect Keri Strug-like move.  No way could he have died; it was not allowed until you were old.

My mind turned to the scene of the crime as it does whenever I hear of someone dying; the image of him lying in his bed as the smoke monster enveloped his soul churned in my brain.  Did he suffer?  When did he realize this was it for him?  Did it hurt or did it happen in his sleep?  

My whole world felt suffocated, wronged, and unfair.  For a solid ten years, I had cavorted here and there, laughing and galavanting like it all was a-okay, thinking life would never end and happiness would live on forever.  I took chances, stepped where I should not have and acted recklessly for the sake of a good time.  I laughed so hard my abs got a workout, I got worked up about cheerleading moves and volleyball games, and I absolutely loved candy.  Death never crossed my mind unless I was attending yet another funeral of my extended family (and believe me there were quite a few), where finality becomes clothed in promises of closure but where the sadness really begins to set in.

And I know you’re shining down on me from heaven (or somewhere for that matter)

To lose Julius was to lose part of my childhood.  With his rounded almond eyes, his ever-wearing grin, and his beams of encouragement, Julius was a friend to all.  If I had personified him into an animal, he would be the most loyal and gentle of the creatures, a comforting ball of love one goes to when having a hard day.  

Julius came to our school later in the game, he was one of those kids we encircled and butt-sniffed, but he was a good seed we could have used from the start; we all knew and felt the good vibes when we met him.  He hated no one, held his own with the other big personalities that galloped the room, but did it in a mild, respective, and content manner that could charm the angriest of lost luggage victims.  He made you feel like you were doing your best and your best was good enough.  Losing him was like losing the uplifting part of your daily routine.

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

It is difficult to imagine ten-year-olds being hit with the kind of tragedy only adults should have to face; it is even tougher to think these days there are children younger than this having to cope with the image of their classmate being shot in the head.  

Looking back, the biggest shock is how all of the kids went to school on the day Julius died.  I think about this often as now I struggle to attend anything if I am not in a good headspace or have the slightest hangnail.

Although I am a proponent of being a hermit crab, had I not gone to school the day Julius died, I am confident I would have been worse off; I would not have known that other people cared, that other people hurt, and that death is scary to most people, including myself.  I would have never learned that crying and pain are a part of life and that we will probably suffer more than we will party, although we will fight for the latter tooth and nail and might go down suffering in the process.  

Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see

My point is this – there is no point.  Losing someone at any age is awful and feels impossibly hard.  As I become entrenched in my parental years, I think back on this day from a new perspective.  I think about Julius’s parents and sister, who are beyond resilient and have used the cataclysmic event to support others, I think about the kids around me who never knew death and how it affected them, I think about what life would have been like had he made it past that fire, I think about how unfair it all is, but mostly I think about Fate, Life, and the fact that everything happens for a reason, although this event still feels like unfair punishment for all.  
Julius pushes me every day to do my best and live life to the fullest and is a reminder that life can change even on a Wednesday morning when you are comfortably watching Scooby Doo while debating which of your friends is going to be your BFF for the day.  So get out and make it happen folks, and remember that you are one of the lucky ones.

Once upon a time, my first daughter was referred to speech therapy.  Once upon another time, my second daughter was referred to speech therapy.  In both twisted tales, each daughter was under the age of eighteen months. 

That’s my daughter in the water, everything she knows I taught her. 

My four-year-old daughter is healthy, not normal (because that is boring), independent, smart, fierce, and like every parent says of their kid – the perfect child.  She throws toddler tantrums, has strong feelings about what color popsicle she wants (during the day and before lunchtime might I add), watches too much television, parkours outside like a monkey in the jungle, and reads, dances, paints, sings, and plays with fervor.  She gets sick on occasion from licking things she should not be licking, she bumps her head an alarming amount, and she touches, presses, and pulls on things when she is not supposed to, inching us closer to the next accidental nuclear disaster.  As a mom doctor – the best kind of doctor – she is hitting all the marks and doing all the things – smooth sailing.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news

But whenever I enter the doctor’s office, I feel the opposite – I worry my child lags behind, not pushing enough, not exceeding the gold standard.  I feel diminished, beat down, and regretful for all of the teachings I have spilled out before the kids.  I sink into the corner as they ask me about her diet, I shake when they check her vitals, heart, and appendages, knowing that one wrong move will get us a one-way ticket to the specialist, I get the jitters when filling out the developmental packets, knowing one off-kiltered answer will land us in the referral penitentiary, and I get anxious spinning a tale in my mind of how I am going to politely decline the doctorly advice.

Over the course of my daughter’s four-year life, I have been referred to a nutritionist, a cardiologist, a physical therapist, and a speech therapist, none of which provided a benefit to me, with the tiny exception of the cardiologist, which I still think was initiated because of a doctor needing to hit a certain amount of referrals for the month to get their fat bonus to fund their multiple vices (we all know they have them).  $250 later, and I know she has a heart murmur that is innocent until proven guilty, a common occurrence in children that probably could have been diagnosed within the primary doctor’s visit instead of spending a month worrying until the specialist appointment takes place. 

I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch.

I am no doctor, but I am a wannabe M.D. who goes medication-free (except for the green stuff),believes in holistic approaches, and throws her own theories into the mix whenever conversing with the gods of medicine.  Back in my twenties, I pursued medical school and PA school; I took the MCAT the same week I took my GRE, thinking I could use my MS in Health Administration and my certification in laboratory science as a way for the doctors to “finally accept me,” but they still slammed the door at my one interview, the same as the pre-med snobs who shut me out when I studied with and got better grades than in college.  Giggles still flee from my soul when thinking of the countless nights those smarties spent studying, missing out on the valuable lessons on bedside manner where you have a drink in one hand and a blunt in the other.  Those pre-med puppies were mostly bullies, telling me I was not smart enough to get that kind of grade, shooting down my ideas, and pushing me out of the conversation.  Being the feisty, determined, and witty undercover genius that I am, I took the path they less traveled and now bathe in contentment and get to see my family ten times more than they never dreamed of doing.  That never was not a typo, folks.

I’ve got to tell you in my loudest tone, that I’ve started looking for a warning sign.

After living in the medical world for 18 years, I have developed an impressive bullshit radar for any provider I come across, and I exercise it whenever I can, especially in my children’s visits.  This past visit was an 18-month checkup for my 17-month-old.  I filled out the developmental packet, providing honest answers, scoring low in the bulk of the Communication section, knowing a conversation was about to be had.  Like clockwork, the doc came in after a half hour of living with toddlers in a tiny room, giving me a concerned look and talking in Charlie Brown teacher voice, the only words I catch being “concerned,” “speech therapy,” and “follow-up appointment.”  I took out my invisible Samurai sword, chopped the head off of the referral beast, and left the office knowing I would not be coming back unless a vaccination was needed or a chronic condition came up.  

On our way home, my mind raced with nervousness and worry – was I not talking to her enough?  Am I a bad mom?  Did I make this happen?  Is she an idiot?  Can I force speech on her like a ventriloquist’s dummy?  HOW DO I MAKE THIS BETTER?

When we arrived home, I morphed into a depressed mom, who could not mom like she used to, and my kids suffered more than they would have had we not gone to the doctor.

Two weeks later, my child started saying words, the first one being “Ow,” the second being “Mom,” you decipher that. Rewinding back to my first child, and she started talking a little after two, spewing words like “parasaurolophus” and since has not stopped chatting. She’s a living jabberwocky just like her ‘rents. And then I realized that the eighteen-month speech therapy referral was a load of BS, at least for our family.

Talk dirty to me

Correct me if I am wrong (and I am quite a bit), but are children supposed to be throwing out water cooler talk at the tender age of eighteen months?  As a parent of kids who grow too damn fast, I thought we were operating under the theory of “it will happen when it happens and we are not supposed to rush this.”  But after a few Google searches and nosedives into academic journals, the “wait and see” approach is as outdated as the Blackberry.

Alas, I will still push my ancient wisdom on you all, because I want to save every single future parent from a nail-biting, anxiety-ridden, worrisome experience that is both preventable and motivational.  

Case #1 – Pushing children to talk – I thought we were all wearing the same team colors here, but there were many wolves in sheep’s clothing, and I am the dumbass that fell for it.  My impression was the adults were cheering for words after the two-year mark.  That gives us two years to coddle, cuddle, and muddle through the crazy infant/toddler/monster years without adding talking to the mix.  I have enough thoughts going through my head and find little need for a one-year-old to learn how to form opinions, contribute squeaky bits to adult conversations, and demonstrate the violent rush of swear words that flow from my mouth as routinely as your morning bowel movements.  And how are they supposed to talk if they don’t have teeth?  Both of my girls got teeth after a year, meaning they could not practice dialect the first year of life.  No thank you, one-year-old, please sit on your Boppy pillow, play with your blocks, and absorb the world while I bask in the first two years of your adorable and fastidious life.

Case #2 – Pushing children to walk – Throwing this in there because I hear parents with anxiety about their kids not walking at a certain age.  I could be crazy, but I want the gremlins to start walking as late as possible, offering me multiple opportunities in their first year of life to get shit done and cuddle that blob of a poop-machine before it evolves into a squirmy, wormy agent of chaos that jumps from tabletops without looking down and uses the couch like a trampoline, defying the death of the coffee table corner that used to be childproofed but both the children and dogs ripped off the padding and now we are in a wild West free-for-all.

A visionary, vision is scary, could start a revolution, polluting the airwaves

Call me selfish, call me a bad mom, call me whatever your judgy heart desires, but I like my babies immobile and poorly-versed for the first one to two years, and who are you to tell me different?  Oh yeah, I forgot….you are THE doctor, and what you say goes.

But let’s all be reminded of the one major importance of this situation – Einstein did not talk until he was five.  

What are we worried about here if our baby geniuses are sitting silent, observing the beautiful world around them, practicing speech in their cribs at night, and waiting, just waiting, for the perfect moment where they can recreate that one time you said “oh fuck” in front of them?

When the topic of drinking came up the other day, I knew I wanted to write about it but immediately dismissed the idea as it made me feel naked, vulnerable, and evil, thus making me want to write about it even more.  You might get to the end of this post and think, “Damn, she has a problem,” and perhaps I do; maybe that is why I am writing this.  But maybe, just maybe, I am using this as a way to motivate myself out of a current hole or provide justification that what I am doing is okay; perchance it is a situation someone else is struggling with too.  Congratulations, you had the opportunity to peek into a small hole in my brain, but not for long as things up there change as fast as Colorado weather.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

My nineteen-year relationship with alcohol has been as difficult a marriage as any.  In the early years, I had flings, affairs, and weird love triangles with the popular players like tequila, cheap vodka, and Budweiser (so much Budweiser, my stomach aches thinking of all of the grain I consumed; had I continued on I would have been crowned the Queen of beers that no college girl drinks but me).  I have done plenty of dumb, impulsive, heartbreaking, and death-defying things that I am neither proud of nor regretful of as they have showed me what I suck at – namely holding myself back from doing something new, different, or fun.  I used to tango with tequila on the regular:  In college I was gifted two fifths of Jose Cuervo by my roommates, guzzled one down with OJ and found myself wandering the dorm halls without my contacts in, mind you I am quite blind without them.  Drunk Jamie was on the loose, getting tangled with boys who know nothing of how to talk to girls (probably still do not but have wooed women that fall into their sticky spiderweb of feminine insults because of those damn eyes), and waking up not really sure what bad decision was landed on hours before waking up with the maniacal, clinging, and pestering monster of Hangover land.  Once tequila and I parted ways, I toyed with fruity cocktails and found I had the same opinion about them as I had about the makeup-drenched and tight-clothed wannabe superheroes drinking them.  I dabbled in the less-frivolous drinks, the ones that had only two ingredients – soda and booze – which confirmed my distaste for soda, the silent killer of America, and established once again my aversion to sweet things, which clings true to my dark soul.  

As I dated the various concoctions like the floozie I am, my trusty friend, craft beer, stood by patiently, waiting for me to get my wild inclinations out, and offering unconditional love.  Beer has been a companion since the tender age of sixteen (gasp!), and it has withstood my wild ideas and harebrained notions; it loves me no matter what, and it always brings at least five to twenty-three other friends to the party, twenty-nine if you are strapped for cash and want your drink diluted.  Beer is my friend, and I am not ashamed to deny it. I delight in the strong ones, the fruity ones, the hoppy ones, the dark ones – I do not discriminate, but I do have an affinity towards the sexy Belgians as they are witty (absolutely COULD NOT help myself there, heart still pounding from the pun), well-rounded, and deceivingly complex; everyone has a type.  

My other drinking buddy is quite the sage, teaching me sophistication with a twist of absurdity; they guide me on how to fake it until I make it and they take their hairy arm, reach it into my throat, pull out my guts, and make me come face to face with my true self whenever I hang with them.  Whiskey, you know who you are.  This also includes bourbon and scotch for the classy people out there, but I am too hypnotized and head over heels to study the difference between the three.  

Put the lime in the coconut and call me in the morning.

As my husband said when I disclosed my efforts to shape up my drinking habit, “You mean to tell me that you are the only stay-at-home mom with a drinking problem?”  He brings up a good point.  

I am aware this particular habit is unhealthy and could use some shaping up, but (and I will probably always say “but” when denying my drinking problem) drinking is a recreational activity that I can fully get behind and do not plan to divorce any time soon, but rather I want to learn how to cohabitate in a symbiotic and pleasant manner.  I enjoy the taste of beer, cocktails, and any drink that contains an ethanol derivative.  I like feeling different, I enjoy (and also can get my ass kicked from) the bravery it behooves in me, it makes music, movies, and scenery that much better, and it is the only proven way known to man to get a good night’s sleep while tent-camping.  

Beware, drinking is also prone to stealing an entire day from you should you take it too far, not eat enough beforehand, or consume too much at one time.  It can cloud up a lifetime of memories and socialize heavily with its friend, Missed Opportunities.  It wastes time yet makes good times. 

And you might say I’m bad off, but I chose the road I stumbled across

I fear I took the good times too far, and rather than Drinking remaining an acquaintance, it started creeping its way into my normal routine, wanting to be buddy-buddy with my pals Parenting, Writing, Exercising, and Crushing It.  I knew Alcohol was not cool enough to hang with the top players, but I failed to stop it; I wanted to watch the car crash, and now I am ferociously rewinding the tape to recalibrate to my best self.  

My tried and true method of resetting myself from a bad habit is to withhold and realize what life was like before I fell in love.  My other tactic is staying away from the beast all together, hence why I have never tried any drug that was made in a lab because I know I would love it way too much; I do not trudge past the category of those that are grown in the ground, you know who you are.

Recently I decided to practice my method on Alcohol by forcing myself not to drink during the week as a way to experiment and taunt my addictive personality.  I wanted to see if I had self-control and also observe what cutting back on drinking would do for my health.  Routinely working out has done wonders for my health, so let’s see what else this body is capable of.  

I read a lot about writing as I want to be one someday (correction:  I am a writer).  Most writers have an alcohol problem, my main influence sharing that he remembers nothing about writing one of his books from being so doped and sloshed up.  I am aware danger lurks, I see you, Addictive Personality, and I will not let you take over completely.  It is evident why rockstars and famous people get married to alcohol as they can keep pace and metabolize most of it through head-banging and running around like they are breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law.  **Sighs, kisses two fingers, salutes the air with a peace sign, and longs to be living that limousine-riding, champagne-poppin’ lifestyle someday**  A tribute to how alcohol is praised in mass media.  

Maybe I don’t have to be good but I can try to be at least a little better than I’ve been so far

One month into my low-accountability experiment and I have failed multiple times in my efforts of not having a drink during the week.  Hell, I am having a small glass of whiskey as I edit and add rewrites to this.  I made a few exceptions, so what; everyone is allowed grace, it is the key to balance. 

My exceptions for getting to drink one to two beers during the week include winter days that exceed 55 degrees and are sunny in the afternoon, tiny celebrations of life such as my first published piece of writing work, or after an emotionally turbulent day with the girls.  That last one is not a positive action, but again, life is all about balance; back off, nobody is perfect.  Some authors are out there writing textbook motivational posts where they only tout their strong suits and energy supplements, but I write about my blind spots and pain points.  We know who is making more money, but do we know who is more fulfilled?

If we are looking at this glass as being somewhat full, as I most often do, the bulk of my goal was met – I no longer hang out with Alcohol every day, I have regained self-control, a treasure I oftentimes misplace and “forget” to let inside, and I treat Alcohol as a kickass special guest and not as a normal part of the family.  I am guaranteed to violate this mindfulness around friends I have not seen or long-distance family I have not embarrassed myself around in a while.  This cadence could change as I age, and I am comfortable tackling those “problems” as they arise.

For now at least.  

On to the next vice.

“I’m in repair, I’m not together but I’m getting there.” -John Mayer (recently resurfaced this gem of a guy and am loving the journey of hearing his smoky voice again)

This year my dog Rigby and I are turning the same age – 35 – and for the curious minds out there, of course we are planning a bomb-ass birthday bash.  But before we party hard, I wrote her a depressing love letter about how I miss my first dog and have realized that I will never have a dog as great as her, and how it makes me sad for all of my future dogs knowing they are being put up against unreachable expectations.

Rigby is my second dog and is true to her name, which comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby, a sad lonely lady. Rigby is the polar opposite of Scout, and at times, I suspect she is a feline. Her anxious tendencies and intense fear of separation ensure that all of the toys in the house have chewmarks and all of my bras are carried away to Never Never Land, which resides under our bed where she hides for a majority of the day. But regardless of how Rigby perceives being the second dog, I want her to know will always love her deeply, but deep down I will always hope that she grows up to be my first dog.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

Back before I died inside from a bad job and a lack of sparkle, we had a black Labrador Retriever named Scout after the protagonist Jean Louise Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.  Scout was our first baby, and she taught me to be me:  how to explore, revealing that Chicago has more countryside than I realized and that Colorado is just as beautiful as the pictures suggest.  I almost witnessed her plummetting to her death on a hike in Boulder where she chased a tennis ball down a steep ravine upon catching the scent of water and not fighting to urge to immediately find it.  I spent every pre-bedtime snuggling her for at least fifteen minutes, lathering my face in her snout and nearing suffocation from smothering my face in her thick mane; my husband missed me during those years but understood the necessity of the cuddle.

Scout was diagnosed with bone cancer when we took her to the vet for what we thought was a broken paw but ended up being a tumor-infested shoulder that burst the bone surrounding it.  A large piece of my soul was lost when Scout went into the ether, and I am still searching for it to this day.  As I put my forehead to hers for the very last time, I sat in the room and watched the universe drain from her eyes as she was infused with death.  It took me more than a while to pry myself off of her and leave her side for the remainder of eternity.

As we contemplate adding another dog to the household, I wanted to write a letter to my current, future, and past not-first dogs – all of the dogs after Scout.  Cheers to the dogs that will never be good enough but try hard to get the job done, for you are the ones that need the most love.

Dear Future Dog

Dear future dog, please slobber all over my face with your smelly, rat-scented breath.  It invigorates my soul.

Dear future dog, please run in between my legs after you lay outside in the sun for hours to imitate the feeling of straddling a large comforter thrust out of the dryer.  My inner thighs need more of you.

Dear future dog, please perform an acrobatic routine whilst making your descent off of the couch.  The sight of your butthole in my face, opening as wide as a newborn’s yawn, never seeming to close, brings me extreme pleasure.

Dear future dog, please have mercy on me when I yell at you to stop speaking, for no creature should have its voice revoked.  Barkers unite, howlers revel!  Maybe not at 5am though…

Dear future dog, please take up the entire side of my bed, forcing me to insert myself under the covers like a kid who forgot a sleeping bag and has to share.  And when I lean over to kiss you, please inhale like you took a fresh bong rip, and exhale with fury, spattering spitticles all over my face and your whiskers, and be sure to give out an exonerable sigh that resurfaces my suspicions that you really can talk. And when I finally get situated in our shared space, please get up at that exact moment, move two feet away, do a few circles, and plant yourself on my newly-bowed legs. And when you do that, please rest your head on my thigh and make me feel safe, sound, and smothered – more secure than a newly-swaddled baby.

Dear future dog, please search in the yard for slimy yet crusty tennis balls that lie near ancient piles of poop I have neglected to pick up all winter.  And when you find the goods, bring them to me and pile them in my lap like sacrifices for my kingdom, streaking my pants in the sign of the dog.  And if I fail to tend to these neon spheres of goodness, nudge them onto my shirt to make a mud-streaked ensemble, for I am now the ruling queen of Muddledtennisballland and you shall never go without a dirty ball for as long as you shall live.

Dear future dog, please gain momentum to cannonball into the water like boat being pushed out to sea. Please perform an expert, synchronized paddle routine, swim far enough where I become convinced you will run out of steam and force me to rapidly contrive a plan to save you, and on your return to the shore, please hack up what sounds like steel hairballs until you make it to safety and rush to my side to douse me in a hefty sample of the almighty pond water.

Dear future dog, please throw out my rotator cuff from using the tennis ball launcher for hours on end. I crave the pain and attention.

Dear future dog, please let your mind, soul, and body get as lost as that tennis ball you are trying to locate as you run paces back and forth in a fervent yet diligent manner. And make me wait longer than I want to while you navigate it with your outrageous sense of smell; the suspense is killing me.

Dear future dog, please scope out that massive mud puddle when we arrive at the dog park, and be sure to immerse yourself in it like a person who just found a new religion and celebrated it with a full-body bath in the spirit wat.., errr, mud. Cleaning the bathtub and carpet are two of my favorite pastimes.

Dear future dog, please put your nose on my leg when I least expect it, propelling me six feet up from thinking I was prodded with a wand made of liquid nitrogen.  Once I come back down, tap me again, this time longer since your nose will now have received the powers of warmth, transferred from my flabby thighs to your leathery snout.  I will be ready for it, and I will dig it.

Dear future dog, when you go to take your seventh nap for this day, please put your paws together like an elephant balancing on a wooden box.  Please be open to me squishing all of your paws together, and please be ok with me rubbing my face within the twelve righteous paw pads, for these are the receptacles that infuse me with life every morning – give us this day our daily corn-chip-smelling bread.

Dear future dog, please shed your coat all over my house like a Grammy-winning diva slipping out of her sequined cloak on stage mid-song.  Please store up monumental tufts that fly away like a grand finale when I go to give you a full-body scratch, and strategically place said fluffballs by a place of violent airflow, so they can catapult onto my freshly-made lunch.  I will dine like royalty.

Dear future dog, please make me believe you are human by the time you reach four years of age.  Convince me that your presence is necessary, and overtake my mind so that I could not imagine a household without you.  And at the four-year mark, please turn into a completely different canine and emerge with superpowers, extreme muscular definition, and a serene outlook on life.  Make me understand that one’s twenties are a special time of discovery and that one’s thirties are when the true self is found.

Dear future dog, please do not fear me because you have been waiting almost a year for me to bring home your sister dog, my first dog, the one who I suddenly took away one morning after a fabulous game of fetch in the backyard.   Do not be afraid that she never came back, and do not deem me evil for her abrupt disappearance.  Please trust that I took her somewhere safe where she is happy, comfortable, and well-fed.  And please forgive me for making you trust me after this, for no one should have to put their faith in a person who takes away something as important as a best friend.  People are asked to trust a fake deity on the regular, but you do not deserve to be treated as such.  You have a right to the truth. And please know that I did not want her to go either.  Dear future dog – please help me get through this.

Dear future dog, please do not fret when I come back one day with another one of you. And please be patient with the new friend as it is my way of giving you companionship during times when I cannot.  And please do not get upset when I snuggle with the new companion; you have not been replaced, you never will.

Dear future dog, please know that you are the reason I live my life.  Without you, life would be dull, grey, and unable to be traversed due to the giant, flesh-eating army of uneaten crumbs.  

Dear future dog, I love you.

Daydream Believer

As an Idealist, I sift through the daydreams of my mind on an all too frequent basis; I ponder mindless topics such as the future of our melting world (lots of post-apocalyptic prep going on in my melon), the genesis and continuation of the gigantic universe (or what happens when the computer programmer in another galaxy decides their “Human Project” just isn’t worth maintaining anymore and angrily crams Earth into the trash, salivating as our world flames up before them in the rusty can, immediately pivoting their attention to a new, foolish, primal, vulnerable planet who will succumb to any command they throw out there), or my most favorite gnat-like daydream – what will happen if I ever become famous.

Many folks would tag someone who premonishes fame as vain, egotistical, or just plain ignorant. I mean, who would give me, a whiny cynic, even one peg leg to stand on, let alone two? And for the record, I would proudly stand askew on my wooden legs if and when my current getaway sticks get chopped by the axes held by the critics of life; I would still be complaining, judging, and lecturing as my legs were consumed by pesky, greedy termites who refused to see other perspectives; I would continue to shout as the bullying fire ants, full to the brim with one-sided opinions and closed minds, devoured my opinionated and half-muscular, half flabby body. As a time traveler, I think I have been to the future, and some who are ahead of our time say you can still hear my soul screaming out about justice, humanity, and “going green” on nights when the wind is foggy and thick with pollution.

Unlike Bruno Mars, I do not want to be a billionaire “so freakin’ bad,” although the money would not hurt my venture of wanting to live in a van down by the river and travel the world, all while not going into debt.  However, as my parents sadly know from the several times they have lent me cash to help me stand up to death and taxes, being in the negative never bothered me since you cannot take it with you when you go.  Life is one big credit card, and whether my money is spent paying for that $400 finger wart to get removed for a second time (I’ve since decided to keep it because of its aversion to liquid nitrogen and its ability to withstand extreme conditions; it deserves to live on my ring finger out of its sheer tenacity) or spent to feed my children, I will persist and insist on finding a way to stay afloat regardless of the income flowing in or how many people on this globe know of my name (and potentially relate to it). 

Being famous is not a top priority to me as I write this “book” I keep telling everyone about. Hell, most people probably think I am spending my days writing nonsense, trying to become an all-star tie-dying master, and wait, where in the hell did this soap-thing come from?  The truth is, my quest to be an author of written works is simple:  I want to share my weird and outside-the-box perspective with people, open up minds, create more questions than answers, that kind of M. Night Shyamalan stuff (my heart hurts for him and the expectations he set for himself with The Sixth Sense), and potentially make someone relish a wee bit more in the highs and lows of life because when you look back on it, even the moldy and smelly stuff make life worth living. 

A funny thought that always creeps into my visionboard of fame is the world learning of my upbringing.  I scarf down documentaries on the regular, absorbing the childhoods of my favorite geniuses, trying to connect the dots on how I relate, and I laugh thinking of a scenario where someone wanted to make a film about my origins.  If anything, my family deserves to be famous more than myself; after all, they did create Butt Darts, or at least I think that is how the legend goes.

In Our Family Portrait, We Look Pretty Happy, We Look Pretty [Ab]Normal

Instead of fantasizing about what cool car I would drive, what I would stock my mansion with, or what clothing line I would represent if I became famous, my mind becomes curious about what would happen if they wanted to interview my family members – not even my immediate family, although they are pretty wild to dissect, but rather my extended family, because they are the ones my mind goes to first; I am not surprised by this as I spent the bulk of my free time with them until I was 26 and escaped from Illinois, never once looking back but checking in often on those who remain there. Having children has thrown off the balance and frequency of our visits back to the IL in the past few years, but returning to my family is like visiting with a deeply incredible friend after a long time off – you pick up right where you left off.

For the record—I have no clue who “they” are who have chosen to interview us (what kind of show are we making here anyway?), but in my mysterious brain, “they” show up one day, wanting to share my story with the world and take a tour of my grassroots. Rest assured, this thought is as surprising to me as it is to you.  After consulting with my family, this thought is not foreign.  My cousin Jill, who is a bombastic English teacher and was willing to give up an hour of her life to proofread this post, said this:

Ironically, I have often thought about this too, but in my mind it is a reality TV show.  If Reality TV would have been the rage in the early nineties when we were growing up, and in the height of the family shenanigans, we would all be millionaires…or we would have all been living in different families because CPS would have taken us out of this environment. Because let’s face it, not everyone thinks teaching children the finer points of the lime in Corona’s and shoving quarters up pants-clad back end is a proper, upstanding way to rear children.

Jill and I originate from the Caves of Sensitivity, a place only few family members attempt to traverse due to the heightened state of emotion it evokes.  

My Family Is the Centerfold

Ever since I was birthed by my mother, a wise warrior woman, I have been routinely surrounded by a tribe that fluctuated between twenty to forty assertive, humorous, and adventurous people. I write this post in the present tense because even though I now live 1000 miles away, I feel connected, close, and in tune with my kinfolk. We make an effort to meet up–vacationing, visiting, and checking in via social media. The extended family on my mother’s side resides within thirty miles of each other back in Illinois, a longstanding root that will live on well beyond my short-lived time in this world.

Not only does this group live close together, but we gather frequently, well more than the average amount as has been revealed to me as I traverse my [fake] adult years.  As Jill says, we do not need an excuse to gather.  We could decide to get together because it is snowing that day.  Someone sends the smoke signal, food is prepped, beer is bought, and before the day’s end, we have ourselves a party. 

We coerce with minimal drama while diving into tough topics like why some of us did not baptize our children (this one was me) or why one of us chose not to vaccinate our kids (this was was definitely not me, and of course I had an opinion about it), we take on activities and feats of strength that result in maximal fun, we bring up endearing memories about the large percentage of us who have passed away from the Big C and the small percentage of us that avoided cancer but departed in other ways, and we help each other scooch along the road of life with pointed opinions, blunt questions, and ribbing jokes.

I Said Leave Me Alone, I’m Just Carryin’ On An Old Family Tradition

My mom’s side is from Germany, the land of beer, grumpiness, and strong-wills; we bitch, moan, and gripe, all while holding an adult beverage, a paper plate full of various casseroles and side dishes, a sarcastic outlook on life, and potentially an annoyance to the noise level of whoever’s house we are congregating; I forgot to mention that in addition to these glowing and assertive characteristics, we are also pot-clanging loud with any activity we take on. One could sit in the room of our family parties and witness ten simultaneous and involved conversations (some of the pairs being people across the room from each other), children carrying beers to their parents like miniature waiters and waitresses, a tight game of Taboo going on, along with three people watching and becoming very involved in a sports game.  Big D, our newly twenty-one-year-old cousin who allowed me to coddle him back in his toddler years as I pretended to be a thirteen-year-old mom, is now a guru at inserting the lime in the Corona because as a wee lad this was his main responsibility at our family gatherings; he also a noise referee (I will explain later) but I believe he crossed the picket line after he realized the loud ones were the cool ones.

We handle our drinks well for the most part, but we sometimes have people who take the liquid courage too far, aka too many shots of Colorado whiskey or too many Claws (ain’t no laws with the Claws).  When people get rowdy, we banish those clowns to their dungeons; my Aunt Jan once kicked my husband out of a family Christmas for taking down too much whiskey with a fellow out-law, aka, my cousin’s husband. It was quite a year, it has to be in the top-ten holiday moments of all time, or top-twenty, because there have been so many epic memories made. Alas, if we get kicked out by the matriarchs, we (safely) move the party to another house; problem solved. We also have kind members of the team who stay sober and referee the events (one of Big D’s first gigs), tapping one on the shoulder if they get “too loud” (which is well beyond the definition of loud since the refs give us a lot of grace), telling us to “take it down a notch,” knowing this is a useless action and it only makes us enhance our boisterous talk.

I’ll Take Butt Darts for $1000, Please

My extended family likes to wash their vices down with a tall cocktail of games and fun, and the best game we have in our closet, in my humble and assertive opinion, is Butt Darts.

We play other games, like our annual lip-syncing competition on the Fourth of July where we dress up and dance to popular songs while the crowd judges our level of tomfoolery and outlandish choreography; one year my aunt jumped into the pool for the final refrain of her song, and this past year she dressed as Kenny Rogers, her husband as Dolly Parton, and they jammed out to Islands in the Stream in the best way possible; Aunt Laurie is a longtime lip-syncing champion and the type of famous you and I can only dream of touching. However, we should all bow down to my fairy godmother, Aunt Nancy, gone way too soon but always with us in spirit, who transformed the lip-syncing landscape altogether, creating an unsinkable dynasty with my godfather (aka THE Godfather), Uncle Pete. Their dynamic duos had us in tears for multiple years as we sat in the backyard, swimming suits damp, bellies full, and hearts happy. One year they performed a pristine rendition of Jay and the Americans “Come a Little Bit Closer” where they did a gender reversal; somehow to this day I cannot erase the image of my uncle in red lipstick.

We also contrived a rendition of Double-Dare that Nickelodeon wishes they would have discovered. We are good at reproducing and we managed to convince an ever-changing team of at least five to twelve kids to play whichever year we had the itch to put on Double-Dare; we converted toddlers, adolescents, preteens, and teenagers who still considered us cool into savage gladiators, battling in the ring, while the adults wagered, cheered, and booed from the stands. Yes, please dip your head into this bucket of water, one after the other, and bob for that apple.  Don’t worry about what is in that murky kiddie pool filled with water, jello, oatmeal or other varying hodgepodge of kitchen ingredients…you are just going to jump in and roll around and then get out really quickly before we tell you to move on to the next thing we think is hilarious for you to do in this game! Germs, spit, none of that matters; keep your eye on the prize. And carry that upside down cone full of water, strapped on your head, while weaving through cones. 

No wonder I am so determined.

In addition to lip-syncing and Double-Dare, we coordinate mean games of volleyball, where one year my cousin Joe’s newly-pierced nipple had a mean entanglement with the volleyball net (yikes, we had been ribbing him about the new jewelry all day, and then that happened, poor buddy), bags (aka Cornhole, screw whoever came up with that weird name), and other fads of the year or games someone came back to teach us from the Land of College. I believe we once got a massive game of flippy cup going one year, but that might have been a daydream or a blurred line I remember from college or from my brother’s wedding shower.

We slash board games too, sometimes playing Trivial Pursuit into the wee hours of the night, that is, if we can maintain a pleasant drunken state and not get kicked out by the matriarchs. One time we played a game that required you to guess the phrase from a conglomeration of other words – for example, a card would say “Way Camp Ache,” and that meant a popular slang phrase. I’ll let you figure out that one instead of spoiling all of the fun by giving the answer. Hint: It makes for an exquisite morning. Anyway, I excelled at that game because I had a toddler who spoke gibberish on the regular and I already spoke nonsense.

Last but not least, we organize the fiercest Christmas gift exchange east (and probably west) of the Mississippi. It is unstoppable, and there was a year when in the heat of the moment my cousin (notoriously of high volume) called my aunt a B#*ch so loudly I pray to this day someone captured it on video; I saw clips from this year and they were playing a rendition of Plinko on an elaborate, handmade board; you never know what games these brilliant minds will make up.

Why Do You Build Me Up [Butt]ercup?

I realize I made you read all of this before actually talking about the topic of this post, Butt Darts, but I felt it necessary to describe my mythical family before taking it to the main stage. Allow me to explain this magical centaur of a game.

Before you continue reading, please know that you might gasp, shriek, and have the inclination to report our family to the higher-ups.  As Jill said, we should have been taken away by Child Protection Services a long time ago, but we were not, and so now you have to deal with us.  I implore you to refrain from incarcerating us, as we are merely trying to have a good time. We are not harming any humans, and we do not impose our idealisms on other families, not unless you decide to visit one of our family functions by tagging along with your friend, aka my cousin, or your boyfriend, aka my other cousin. Should you be so Spartan-like with your tenacity to experience new things, come on in and see us; please know that we will interrogate you with probing and exposing questions, strong-arm you into playing our games, and poke fun at you without even getting to know you, trust me, we will see inside your soul before you depart for the evening, but we require very little “warming up.”  In addition to ribbing you at your first gathering, we will be kind and make sure you are fed and watered throughout, not make you feel like an outsider by including you in our devious and enlightening conversations, and we will make every attempt to make you giggle and want to come back. We have a sizeable following of outsiders who checked us out once upon a time and morphed into our new family members; sometimes I forget who is blood-related and who is not.

The rules of Butt Darts are as follows: You take a roll of quarters, you place them between your buttocks; Jill wisely reminded me to remind you all to wear pants while doing this.  No one needs butt germs, they are doing just fine on their own.  However, the type of pants you wear could make or break you – jeans seem to work best, but I have heard sweatpants can give you a flexible advantage.  Once you have the quarters between your ass cheeks, you waddle over to a 16 oz cup (not anything made of glass, no need to break anything), strategically flexing to hold the quarters in between said cheeks; when you arrive at the almighty cup, you release the quarters, aiming for the hole and hoping all of them made it into the cup.

Any missed quarters go into the pot, or ante if you are fancy, which goes to the last [wo]man standing who will be crowned the Butt Dart King or Queen. Somehow I feel like I am making most of this up, or getting my rules wrong, and my family is going to be so disappointed in me, but let us keep moving on to discuss the importance of Butt Darts and why you should incorporate this into future family get-togethers.

Look To the Butt Dart

Butt Darts has taught many lessons – not only do you get exercise, but you get instant satisfaction if you are skilled at the game. You reflect on your abilities – your butt did that swan dance, it got the quarters into the cup; you have champion glutes and cat-like steps, and you eventually have a chance at winning all of those quarters, which you will have to probably wash before you go cash them into the bank….or will you? We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no.

Perhaps my favorite part of Butt Darts is its lesson on vulnerability and awareness of one’s own potential. Think about it, you are having to squeeze quarters in your ass in front of many people, those on the sidelines laughing incredulously as you develop your own creative technique for getting those coins, which have now become slippery and somehow smaller than you thought judging by the way you have to clench to the right so much, from point A to point B without losing your cool or laughing too much that you let go midway and blow the entire operation to smithereens. People, this is where you find out about your true self. This is where the magic happens.

You also learn if you are superstitious, since that rusty old quarter from 1993 is the one that religiously goes into the cup after each round, dubbing this your “lucky quarter” and profusely rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger before inserting it back into the butt sleeve again for yet another adventure.  No whammies, no whammies, no whammies.

On gloomy days, I like to think about my cousin Mitchell, conducting a ninja-like dance of an unknown species, successfully carrying his butt-pocket change to the precious cup in a way that no one had ever witnessed before, taking home the gold for the evening. It still makes me laugh as hard as the first time when I saw the choreography, and no one can deny that kind of awesome memory recall.

Even though butt darts might sound strange and a vector for infectious diseases, I continuously thank my family for the courage they have given me to be myself via these games and other feats of strength. I will never forget being poked at for not dancing at a Mama Mia concert; being a shy and sensitive one in a family of bold and blunt extroverts is not always easy, but it has allowed me to learn how to come out of my shell, to express myself, and most importantly to laugh at myself often and to never take myself too seriously, because I am a dip, (and okay with it).

Jill also reflected on her life-skills obtained from our rowdy family:

I really have “no shame in my game” and I tell my students that frequently.  I am free to be my silly, singing, dancing, corny self because I do not care about the thoughts of others and I am self-aware.  I learned this through this family, these silly games, and this fun upbringing.  Be loud and proud and expressive of who you are.  So you might get kicked out of your aunt’s house for yelling at a 10-year-old…the next day all will be well; all will be forgotten and you still will be welcomed and loved in this family. (I don’t know if that was the incident with the whiskey or not–but I know Aunt Jan kicked someone out at Christmas too because Rick and Dawson (aka Big D, our family child who morphed into a twenty-one-year-old adult in a flash) stayed to play games, Dawson learned to be a smart ass from this family, was talking shit, and then someone started yelling at him for talking shit…so she kicked that person out…).  Even being the sensitive soul in the family doesn’t bother me as much in adulthood, because I know this about myself and I simply don’t care that others do too.  Learning to laugh at yourself and to be self-aware are some of the best lessons to learn in life.

For the sake of your happiness, for exercising new ab muscles from laughing, and for new glute muscles from clenching,

get out there and play Butt Darts.

It might make the world a better place, it could make you braver, and you might even learn something about yourself.

Why Do You Write Like You’re Running Out of Time?

My blog posts have been lagging a bit these days. Originally I had established this blog to help me explore the act of writing and build a healthy and productive writing habit. Here are some things I have learned about writing:

1. It is damn near impossible to write with children in the house. Case in point – I woke up early today to spend sexytime with my blog, only to open the laptop’s sleek case, gently tickle the keys to type in the password, some light pokes with the mouse to get to the blog, and then, what’s that?!? A tiny voice crying for me to help get underwear and Garcia the bear. I am a magician and I can make focus time dissipate into the unknown! My forces are stronger than I initially thought.
2. Writing for hours is difficult, sequestering those hours is even harder. See item #1 about time disruption. However, ask yourself if you could sit and pump out a colorful tale in one hour without feeling like you transported to another world. The tricky part is getting your mothership back to the real world after that hour.
3. The urge to recap is impossible to satiate (mostly because of a lack of time). Whenever I worked on a project in the corporate corpse world, I would review my work from the previous day, massaging my cranium and jolting it to recall the masterpieces created the days before. With writing, doing a total recap is not an option, or else you would be rereading your future book seventy thousand times, thus never giving yourself time to start, continue, and finish said book. Can I get an assistant over here please? Someone perhaps more willing to follow instruction than a three year old gremlin.
4. My time with writing has been one of the best endeavors ever. A profound percentage of my quests and jobs in life have been to satisfy my craving for learning, this writing journey is no different. The challenge is the enchantment.

So for now, I will continue to write. I will remain a top-notch mother who teaches my children about the simple, complex, and sometimes deceiving machines of life, and I will power on my journey of learning. Eventually my brain will explode into a million tiny ideas that will sprinkle themselves over the universe, causing others to catch the Learning Bug (forget my other post about Death Wishes to You and Yours, the Innovative Explosion is how I really want to go out).

My name is Matt Foley, and I am a motivational speaker.

Motivation is a mysterious beast. It can be alluring, tantalizing, yet a nasty little shit. I write this as I am tender and sore from a workout that I praised and cursed within two minutes of each other (I believe f*#k you was what I said this time I was doing alternate V-situps today. Better yet, the guy on the video, my pal Phil, said to me (like I knew it all along), “And if you need to take it slow today, you can keep your legs on the ground for this move.” I hear this phrase while the whole time I had been putting my legs on the ground, unaware that they were supposed to do elevated. Even more embarrassing that I had been STRUGGLING that whole time with the “legs on the ground” version. Needless to say, after that move was over, I let out a nice giant F U to my microscopic phone screen, mostly because it was a pain in the ass, pun intended, but a morsel of my heart was saying F U for getting me motivated enough to even try a move like that. Motivation, you sneaky little succubus.

I pulled a butt muscle the other day, and I would have taken that feeling over the alternate-V-sit-legs-floating-in-mid-air dance any day, any time.

But wait, there’s more. Not even three more moves into my buddy Phil’s workout, and I am doing plank jacks and sailing along like the badass warrior woman that I claim to be, cheering along with my boy, P, on YouTube, ready for the next circuit, which ends up being something as awful as “the move before that must not be named.” See above paragraphs if you need a refresher. Ups and downs, all within twenty minutes. 1200 seconds, the amount of time I allow myself to sit on Facebook each day. The 20 minutes on FB feels like a flash in a pan compared to the 20 minutes of exercise. Similar to how lunch break is always cheated while some thirty minute meetings were a struggle to remain from slipping into Freddy Krueger’s world. Sheesh, doesn’t anyone know how to have fun around here?

Bad news, team. Fun is hard work.

This is hard livin’

It takes every morsel of my energy to push through an exercise routine, maybe even more than that. I first have to convince myself that it is worth doing, which it always is, and then I have to walk past a mirror at least twice for glimpses of my metamorphosis, the small muscle tone that exists acting as reassurance that the work is worth doing. Then I have to don my attire, which I make sure takes extra long, even drawing out the speedy task of tying my shoes. Honestly, it is kind of difficult to tie your shoes in slow motion, try it sometime, the brain cannot compute. Finally I make it to the part where I gather my water, my phone, and my headphones, and I trudge upstairs, tell that damn Computer to turn on the Theater light, and I get down to business. Twentyish minutes or less. Full of cursing, taking breaks, and cheering my pathetic self on. Sometimes I get cocky and do a spicy five-minute arm workout after that, and that one always is icing on the cake. Afterwards I bask in the glory of that extra energy, the spryness of my steps, and the ability to fit into clothes I spent money on years ago, only to be looked at, not donned, peered at in a museum-like fashion during the past four years of being in and out of work in the pregnancy department. Those poor clothes. Somehow I manage to convince myself they are worth retaining in my tight closet year after year; the day I finally wear them will be the day I resent them.

The Locomotion, mixed with lethargy

Exercise is a good choice. Deep down I know I will have to continue being healthy up until the day my body explodes into a confetti burst of ideas for the future of tomorrow, but most of me wants to know if there will ever be an opportunity to let go of the jumping jacks and do the fun stuff, like being a couch potato and reading all day. My heart wants to say yes, but my head knows that constant lethargy will get me nowhere but down in the dumps. I wonder if everyone struggles like this – my inferior mind says I am the only one, but my emotionally intelligent brain is mentoring me, stating that a majority of people also struggle through and despise grueling exercises.

I used to hide from exercise like a prisoner escaping in the middle of the night. No way does it see me…..I am slinky and sleuth-like, back against the wall, keeping busy with other tasks so it thinks that I have more important things to do. It cannot reel me in today, I have better plans, a more promising day. I will walk around today, that will be good enough. That was always my motto. And then I got sad because said clothes did not fit anymore. And my stomach felt dense and of the consistency of the La Brea tar pits. Bubbling yet still, gelatinous, clogged with whatever sodium-saturated snack I decided to plunge into at 10pm the night before. Any hangover medicine turns its nose up at my practices of vice-maintenance, hangovers don’t like working hard, so why would their medicines do any different? Nothing works.

Alas, now I have built a routine, and I crave it. Exercise has become a part of my flabby little being, no matter how hard I try to shove it out of my mainframe. Now to uphold and give it the respect it deserves….

Motivation.

Mysterious. Magnificent. Melting. Mind-blowing.

Tell me, how do you motivate yourself?