Down To Zero*

I might just go crazy this week, if I’m not careful.   School is out for spring break and I am homebound by injury.  Three weeks into this cavalcade of crutches and I’m pretty close to despair.  I can’t remember the last time that I went this long without stepping foot into a gym, and I’m slipping slowly into madness as I daily watch all my hard won successes go to seed.

As the days wear on, my ass sinks lower, and the definition in my arms is fading.  I’ve tried very hard to curb my eating, but going from 3200 calories a day to 1200 is no easy feat, and I just don’t have the motivation to keep my hands out of that pretzel sack.  I’m back to averting my eyes from the mirror when I stand before it naked after a shower, and my “thin girl jeans” have been placed back to the bottom of the drawer in exile.

This does not a happy yawp make.

Yesterday, I gimped down to the fitness facility in my complex.  My orthopedist had okayed work on the stationary bike, (with no resistance), so I thought to get some cardio.  No such luck as 10 minutes in, my leg started aching.  I cannot fathom how I’m going to make it another FIVE weeks.

Being fit was inextricably linked to my feelings of self-worth and sex appeal.  Working out was the thing I was good at.  It kept me going.  I ran on running, thrived on plyos, gave thanks for planks.  This girl who had spent the first quarter of her life in abhorrence of herself, who had finally found a measure of pride in the fruits of her efforts, has been forced back into that world of disgust and self-loathing.  Back to square one.

 

 

*The title of this post comes from THIS song.

Things To Avoid When You’re Socially Inept

Oh why??  Why did I do it?  What was I thinking?!  How could I have forgotten and ignored the basic traits in myself that will surely make this endeavor a total disaster?  What if the people suck?  Or are weird?  Or figure out that I’m strange?

Well, I’ve gone and done it.  I’ve dug myself a hole from which there’s no escape.  In my scramble to find ways to enjoy my time here in this Mexican bordertown, I inadvertently and heedlessly hurled myself into a puddle of stress, anxiety and self-doubt.

Upon moving here, I immediately checked MeetUp.com for groups involving things that I enjoy: Hiking, yoga, exercise, trail running, knitting, writing, reading, drinking.  There was NOTHING.  I looked again with different keywords: backpacking, pilates, fitness, jogging, crocheting, books.  Still nothing.

With the summer rapidly approaching, I kept going over and over and over the same lament: I wish I had friends here.  I wished for D to go hiking with.  I wished for Blondie to clean with.  I wished for M to have beers with.  I wished for K to people-watch with.  It started to form into a bona fide funk, and I needed to do something about it.

So I planned a hike.

But I didn’t stop there.  Oh no.  I kept going.

There have to be other hikers here right?  Out of the tens of thousands of people in these three “cities”, there has got to be one or two that are funny and sarcastic and awesome like D, right?  RIGHT?!

And so, on a whim, I paid $36 and started my own MeetUp group called Hiking For Dummies.  I described my goals for hiking this summer and posted the first trip to Palouse Falls that day.  (Which was, incidentally, Friday, the day before the hike itself….I wasn’t lying, I got a wild burr up my ass and three minutes later, I was the organizer and founding member of this group now open to anyone to join.)

I don’t really know why I did it.  I wanted a hiking buddy, for sure; the Old Man humors me and goes when he has no other choice, but deep down, he really doesn’t like it.  It’d be nice to have someone who likes it like I do.  I wanted to meet other people.  Find things to do here.  Discover ways of forming relationships that doesn’t include the bar–which, I fear, I’m rapidly outgrowing.

For a few hours, it felt good.  I was proactive.  The pipedreams of what COULD be kept playing on repeat.  My summer previewed and it was packed with trips and pictures and summits and waterfalls and fields of wildflowers.

And then came the sugar crash.

Mostly, if you met me, you’d never believe me if I told you that I’m generally uncomfortable in new situations and around new people.  But I’m a fake-it-till-you-make-it kinda girl.  I do my best with small talk and smiles and silently pray for a reprieve from someone else.  Until I get comfortable, I’m happiest standing in the back, checking shit out, letting someone else take the lead.  (After that, look out, I’ll charge to the front, but that’s a whole other post on a whole other personality!)

Expectedly, people started signing up.  I had actual MEMBERS who were excited that FINALLY there was a group like this.  I had the type of people that, on paper, were exactly the type of people I was looking for.  Varied hiking experience, varied ages, varied backgrounds.  And it was all of a sudden, REAL.

End honeymoon phase.

It wasn’t long before I realized that it was me who was the organizer of this group.  Me who was going to have to do all the greeting and introducing.  Me that was going to have to take the lead.  Me that was going to have to make the small talk until everyone started picking up on their own.  Me that was going to have to diffuse the awkward moments (the MOST scary because I am usually the CAUSE of the awkward pause…).

And here I sit.  ready for battle once again with my own, probably very mild, case of social anxiety.  Joining a group like this would mean that I could attend when I wanted and bow out if I didn’t.  I could choose who I talked to and who I pursued a relationship with.  As the organizer, it must be equal opportunity to all who join.  Because that’s the type of environment I want to foster.  On the one hand, I’ve taken steps to create a situation that I’ve been searching for.  On the other, I never meant to sign up for the responsibility that goes with it.

My next MeetUp is this Saturday.  I just posted it, and there’s already one person who’s RSVP’d.  Here’s hoping she’s not a serial killer or close talker…..

On Body Dysmorphia

She looked at me down her aquiline nose, letting me know that she’d noticed my second trip to the Christmas dessert table: “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels, Jennifer Nicole” she said, and my 13 year old hand placed the golf ball sized ricciarelli back on the platter.  In a year, I’d be taller than she was and in two I’d learn from a girlfriend that a daily dose of Ex-Lax would keep my stomach flat flat flat enough that I wouldn’t have to unbutton my pants to get them down past my hips.

When I was a young girl, I grew up watching my mother tornado about our living room in shorts and a t-shirt, bounce, bounce, bouncing her way through any number of Jane Fonda workout videos.  Good old Jane, in a chevron striped leotard, would be bent in half, calling out instructions that my mother did her uncoordinated best to follow.  The prescribed dosage of these videos was one a day, but my mother would do three or four in a row starting the second after she had put dinner on the table for my brother and I.   Next to her, would be a can of Diet Pepsi with a bendy straw poking out of the metal hole in the top….

She never ate, that woman, always doing some chore when we were eating.  When my dad was home (he traveled a lot for work), she’d finally sit at the table, but even then, it was a show of sleight of hand, a convincing pantomime of eating that she’d perfected over the years.  Weight was a preoccupation with her, and my eight, nine, ten, eleven year old eyes absorbed it all.  She was the most beautiful woman I knew, and it was my mission to earn her love.  Staying thin was one way to remain invisible to the critical glint in her often crazy eyes.

By 16 years old, the idea of my weight was an out-of-control monster that I could not tame.  I would leer at my naked self after showers, horrified at how wide my hips were (never mind that the delicate bones were visible beneath the skin).  I would sit on the edge of my seat in classes to keep my thighs from “spreading” into what I was convinced was a horrific blob of disgusting fat.  Mirrors were evil henchmen distorting the natural curve of my lower abdomen into revolting rolls of cellulite and revealing, out of the shadows, double chins just above my neck.

Over the years, I would wage a silent war with my body image; seeing how many days I could go without eating, waking up before dawn’s light to get an eight mile run in before school, spending hard earned money on The 24-Hour Hollywood Diet and fantasizing about the cost prohibitive lipo procedures that would solve all my woes.  As my body filled out, I’d berate myself for hating my body so much the previous year, wishing only to go back to THAT body instead of the new one that had changed overnight.  ”If only I’d known!” hissed my Inner Monologue.  Ha!  If only I’d known is right.  If that 16 year old, at 93 pounds knew that she’d balloon up to 130, she might have actually committed suicide.

Over the years, I’ve taken small steps, and won some major battles against the drunken juggernaut of my flawed self-image.  I’ve permanently thrown away scales and will only step on one if forced to by someone in a medical setting.  I gauge my weight by how I feel and how my jeans fit, adding more cardio as is necessary.  I focus on fitness and have traded my fixation on weight for a fixation on muscle definition and overall health.  I eat now, and don’t deprive myself of anything, really, but do say no to those things that I’m not totally in love with; forgoing the bread basket before dinner so that I can have a scoop of coffee ice cream after.

Really though, I’ve only traded the method to my madness.  I’ve never been able to appease that awkward and body dysmorphic teen girl.  I still look at myself with that critical eye.  I cringe in dressing rooms when it comes time to try on bathing suits and jeans and skirts and well, basically anything at all.  Married to mirrors, my eyes are constantly roving my body, screeching at the fleshy bulge of skin around my braline and nauseas at the sight of the pillow of paunch around the tops of my jeans.  I am conscious to sit up straight, and to always wear loose fitting clothes that camouflage the little extra I carry around with me.  I still covet other women’s bodies and have a slowly growing savings account for that lipo that I will eventually get.

I can’t speak definitely (for, who really knows what we all wrestle with when the lights go out at night and have only our thoughts on silent loop), but I am fairly sure that this issue occupies my thoughts enough to consider it an obsession, and that anyone knowing the full extent of the way it consumes me would stagger backwards wondering how I function at all with it standing there, akimbo and taunting.  My mirror-image is a demon.  It forces me through workouts though I’m about to pass out.  It holds hands in camaraderie with the guilt of that extra tablespoon of ranch dressing.  It makes me turn out the lights before having sex and denies me the ability to just throw something on for a night on the town.  I keep it at bay, but I don’t know if I can ever exorcise it.

 

Future Self

The Prompt:

Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) (Author: Jenny Blake)

Okay.  What?  Is my future self giving my current self advice?  Or is my future self giving my future self advice for the upcoming sixth year?  I’m confused.  How did I just get caught in an episode of Sliders? Further, this prompt also assumes that I would take advice from myself.  Which I might not.  Basically, I’m digging in my heels here.  I can’t fathom how to give myself advice from a standpoint of having experienced experiences that I haven’t experienced yet.  I’m just not that astute and fiction isn’t really my thing.  So instead, I’ll take the bonus question for $1000, Alex.

Dear 21 year old Jen:

Oh for crying out loud, are you drunk?  No, no, nothing.  I didn’t mean anything. Huh?  I’m laughing because you crack me up.  Yes you.  I haven’t changed at all.  Pour me one, wouldja?  What?!  Carlo Rossi?  Chablis?  You can’t be serious….shit, I forgot you drank that crap.  Yes, of course I’ll have a pint.  Hand it over.  Yeah, a straw too.  And pack that bowl.  We need to have a chat.

You, my girl, are currently in the midst of what you’ll later be inclined to label as the most carefree and happy time of your life.  With the benefit of hindsight at my disposal, I’m going to make a couple of suggestions that could serve you very well in the upcoming years and perhaps save us both quite a bit of angst.

(Pardon?  No.  Uh-uh.  NO!  Your mother did NOT send me.  I really am your 31 year old self.  Yes, yes, I know that it’s graying.  Yes.  I see that line every day.  Well then quit smoking.  No?  I didn’t think so.  I’m still struggling with that so, shut up.  Can I continue now?  Yeah?  Thanks.)

1.  You hate your hotel major.  I’ve got news for you, kid, you’re going to continue to hate it.  So drop it.  Bite the bullet, stay another year, take a minor in Women’s Studies and make your second major Journalism.  You need to start RIGHT NOW to listen to your gut on things like this.  It’s not going to get better, so get rid of the romantic ideas of what COULD BE, and move on to something you’ll actually love.

(Oh, enough.  Enough of the what-ifs.  No.  No, that isn’t going to happen.  You’ll spend three years working for way too little money while other people take credit for your work.  AND you’ll drink way too much because you loathe what you do so badly.  I don’t know.  Well, it certainly can’t be worse.  Okay, fine.  A bottle of vodka says that Journalism is a better decision.  No, I can do WAY better than Stoli.)

2.  Follow through with the opportunity to get certified as a group fitness instructor and personal trainer through the gym.  You’ll never regret it.  It’s something you’re going to forever wish you’d done.

(Because I said so.  Really?  Okay, What size are your jeans?  You wanna know what mine are?  Yeah.  Sorry, that waist isn’t going to stay that way forever.  Huh?  Yeah?  Oh.  Thanks.  Well, I work at it.  You should start now.)

3.  Put half of everything you make at the bar away.  Don’t touch it.  EVER.  I’m FUCKING SERIOUS.

(Because you already should have traveled more than you have.  Ha.  No smart-ass comment I see.  Good.  Start now.)

That’s it.  Yes, really.  What?  Yes I remember him.  Oh, don’t put too much stock in it.  He’s got a big dick, but he’s fucking crazy….AND he writes terrible poetry.  Plus, you’re going to have an amazing New Year’s Eve.  Just don’t get too drunk….Trust me, it’ll be worth it.  No.  No hints.  Okay, just one:  when you think you ought to take the chance and call someone, do it.  No.  You get nothing else.  You’ll overthink it.  No.  You’ll overthink it and then make an ass of yourself.  As it is, you handled it just fine.

Okay.  I’m going.  I love you.  You’re doing fine.

Me

Beyond Avoidance

The Prompt:

What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?) (Author: Jake Nickell)

I am drawing a real, totally not kidding, they’re-going-to-pelt-me-with-tomatoes blank on this question, dear readers.  No shit.  It’s a great question, and thought provoking, but I’ve got nothing for you.  The only things I can think of are miniscule and pointless, and certainly not fodder for a blog post.  To give you an idea, I’ll list some of them now:

1.  I never made good on my goal to “eat clean” this year.  At some point, I’ll get into my fascination/obsession with fitness and the shape of my body, but not here and now.  Suffice it to say that I shall be making good on that goal in 2011.

2.  I didn’t finish making the Christmas presents that I said I was going to.  I began the process in August, and lo and behold, all the materials and unfinished products are still sitting in a rubbermaid container in my spare bedroom.  Yes Virginia, Santa will be late this year. (btw, it’s impossible to knit and type at the same time.)

3.  I have not yet burned all my CDs to an external hard drive.  I hate hate hate hate that that box is taking up space, but I just can’t seem to get around to it.

See?  Boring.  Who cares about that shit?  If I don’t care enough to complete it, why would you want to read it?  So, in the spirit of retaining readership, I’ll tell you about my trip to the post office today to send out what few presents WERE ready for receipt.

I arrived at about 10:30am and noticed that that STILL wasn’t early enough to miss the holiday traffic.  The parking lot was full of Lincoln Continentals and Cadillacs, and I braced myself to rub elbows with the Blue Hairs.  Settle down, people, settle down, I’m not about to go off on someone’s grandparents.  I happen to like old people.  They’re annoying when you’re stuck behind them in line, for sure, but I believe they’ve earned that right, so I always take a breath and ask myself what I’d want the girl in line behind MY OWN grandmother to act like and adjust my attitude accordingly.

That said, I AM NOT going to spare the little shit on the opposite end of the age spectrum who was obviously without what my friend J.H. would call Home Training.  I was standing in line (with, conservatively, 30 people in front of me), and trying to keep myself occupied by translating the telephone conversation of the lady behind me whose daughter, best I can gather, was traveling up from Arizona.  (I have a relatively good grasp of Spanish, so after a couple minutes, I felt personally invested, and really DO hope that the flan makes it in one piece!)  As she hung up the phone, I swung my gaze toward the front of the line, and noticed, for the first time, a little girl of about 7 years old, staring at me with her finger up her nose.

Now, kids will be kids, and they’re curious by nature, but something about this little girl rubbed me the wrong way.  It could have been the crust of mucus under her nose, or the purple Kool-Aid mustache, but it wasn’t.  It was the fact that her stare wasn’t curious, it wasn’t accompanied by a smile, it was full-on, rude, STARING.  Rude staring that was lasting a really long time.  Long enough that she had time to eat what she’d found up there twice before I understood what was happening.  And so, I did what any grown-ass woman would do in my situation, and I STARED RIGHT BACK at her.

Did she turn her eyes away? Maybe even remove her index finger (up to her second knuckle, btw) from her nose?  NO.  She squared her shoulders, leaned forward, wrinkled her crusty little beak and sneered at me.  And that did it.  I forgot my poise, let go of the fact that I was an adult, and turned the full weight of my Italian Glare on her.  Now, I’ve got rather dark eyes, and I’ve been told they’re intimidating if met full-on in the right situations.  The truth is, I don’t need to be told that.  I know it.  It’s kind of my thing.  So I turned those suckers on, raised my left eyebrow, pursed my lips, glowered at her and pantomimed picking my own nose.

That did it.  Her eyes widened to the size of quarters, filled with tears and she turned and ran straight into her mother who was too busy talking on her cell phone about how drunk she’d been the night before to be paying attention to either her booger-eating, gape-mouthed daughter or the other three boys (also hers) running around like maniacs and bumping into the feeble oldsters who were hardly supported by various walking apparatus.

My point is this:  If I, a complete stranger, can teach someone’s daughter that it’s impolite both to stare, and to pick her nose in public JUST BY GLARING, imagine what a little ACTUAL PARENTING can do.