Forever Never The Dancer

In my head, I am a dancer. I breathe music. I have a playlist for just about everything. Shower? Do you want happy or sad? Cooking? Want get down or fancy-shmancy? Sex? Well….I’ll let you figure that one out. The point is, I love music and how it makes me feel….especially when it moves through my body.

Currently, on the last day of 2014, I am sitting at a wedding reception with some of the best reception music I have heard in forever. The bass is tingling my spine, my stomach has that loud music ache to it and the vibrations are tickling my feet through the floor…yet I stay seated in my chair. My body is pleading for me to get up and go but my brain is in severe protest.

I stay seated because I feel as though people will stare or make fun but really…who cares? Right? Dancing is a person’s way of self expression, of freedom…Right?

Perhaps I am far from free. Actually, that’s exactly how that sounds. I am a prisoner of my own stupid self. Today. While snooping through my grandma’s closet, I found a book about Buddhism with my grandfather’s scribblings in it. He asked himself (basically) why he allowed outside forces effect his inner being. I wonder that, too, Dad. Why do we allow ourselves to be prisoners? Good question. Perhaps I will figure it out sitting in another party chair watching everyone else party…maybe one day I will actually party too.

~SM

Warning! Warning! Undies Are Rolling Down Yo’ Belly

Picture it: Black leggings, black knee high leather boots, black sweater, make-up on, lips glossed….undies rolling. It has happened to me plenty of times. I look fab and feel fab only to have my underwear slowly roll down my belly and slip to a stop under the gut. Can you say mood ruin-er?

This, ladies, is a warning. Your undies are saying “warning! warning! your ass is getting fat!” Any time your undergarments start oozing out flesh or wedging in uncomfy places or rolling down your gut, this is a warning that you are, indeed, getting fatter. So…here…I will admit that I am getting fatter.

I have been training for the Tri for a few of months. I cannot say I can actually complete it with out dying, but I can say my body is more than ready for better nutrition. Young Gun threw down the weight loss gauntlet a few weeks ago and he’s already getting slimmer (in the waist anyway–and currently I hate him so hard right now). Over the past few days I have laid on Mommy’s couch eating cake for breakfast and cookies for lunch. I am deathly afraid of stepping on that scale, but I have got to put my too-small-for-me big girl panties on and hop to it.

No more games (yes…I have muttered those words before). No more excuses (yup…those too). No more slipping and getting lazy (mmhm…this too). Not only do I have a triathlon to finish training for, but I also have a marathon to train for and a friggin weight loss challenge with a young cat to complete. I have no more room for failure. Besides…I am sick of rolling up my underwear.

I will do what I have to do. Eat what I have to eat. Run what I have to run. Lift what I have to lift. I will get to wherever my body wants to take me. The pressure I feel is good pressure. I’m not worried. I am, however, a little annoyed that Young Gun is trying to beat me. There is no way I can let him win…him or my underwear…

~SM 

What’s Next?

Gathered in the living room with old friends and tiny new ones (one of which was sky diving off a Huggies box; the other chasing the Boy), I posed the question: What’s next? With the end of the year looming it was a very viable question. We have seen one another through relationships, marriages, kids, twenty-something antics, job changes, and geographical changes. Most of us are close to 40–some of us just a sneeze away–and at this stage in life, doesn’t one wonder what’s next?

Columbo said what’s next for him is retirement. Having spent about 20 years in law enforcement, he is looking forward to slowing down and spending time with the Huggies box dare-devil and Speedy. Ralph (the newly wed) said he wanted to enjoy life outside of working. He wanted to travel, enjoy his new bride, and explore speaking and teaching.  The Boy would be off to college shortly. The Girl would be close behind. Watching the kids play, the Boy 14, the Girl 12, Huggies 2, Speedy 4, it was clear to see what was next for them: growing.

It had me thinking what was next for me. These first 15 – 20 years have whirled passed. One moment I was graduating high school and the next I was getting a divorce. One moment I was pregnant for the first time and the next I was buying bras and explaining menstrual cycles. The time flew by–flashed by really–and, at the end of it all, I do not feel as if I have accomplished much.

So…what is next? It is sad to say I have no clue. The thought of teaching (not kids…I don’t like kids) has been tugging at my mind. Everyone keeps bringing up the Magazine and to be honest, I have been missing it too. Writing (of course) an NY Best Selling novel (well, several NY Best Selling novels) is floating around as well. But all of those are unicorns. Mystical creatures only captured on black velvet canvas and sold in flea markets. What is next?

Normally, I would end a post like this with some up beat Matthew McConaughey ‘just livin’ conclusion, but this time I am baffled–thus unable to render such a positive wrap up. I am not feeling very positive about this at all. I feel confused, clouded, and slightly annoyed. Have you ever walked into a room, previously knowing why you were going in there to begin with, only to get there and go blank?Your brain grasps for the thing you were searching for only to come back foggy? Well, as of today, that is what feels like is next: unicorns and fog.

~SM