Do you ever feel this way?
Well, it was a Monday. I only did really one of the things I was supposed to get done today: I got my butt to the gym. Even that would not have happened if I hadn't asked my daughter on Friday to remind me by saying, "Mom, ya big fat cow, get your butt to the gym!"
She remembered every word and enjoyed her delivery immensely. Then she added her own touches, grabbing my belly and saying, "We gotta get rid of all this extra skooshiness covering you up!" Yeah. So I asked, "Would you be proud of me if I went to the gym?" And she said, "Of course, Mommy, I'm always proud of you.... Except when you're mean to me." SIGH.
If I'd been planning on going all day, I could have reasonably told myself that I was using up all of my willpower on that, so that there wasn't any left to clean the floors, vacuum, clean the dog's teeth and get to the grocery store, but I wasn't. I got my son to daycare/preschool and he did not want me to leave. We'd had a leisurely, snuggly, lovey morning getting ready and he wanted more of that. I ended up having to pry his little fingers off my shirt. (I've mentioned my ongoing problem of never having gotten over Sophie's Choice, right?) So that was awful. Then I got my chai and went home. I listened to The Diane Rehm Show, which was interesting, about how there are so many more people living alone these days than in the '50s and how it's happening in the cities but not in the suburbs. Anyway, I woke up around 2PM, just before I had to go get my daughter from school. There went my child-free time.
I do this all the time. I lie down, thinking that I want to relax and listen to something briefly on the radio and that I am a grown-up and can handle doing this. Then wake up around two hours later. So, according to Einstein's definition of insanity, which is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, I am quite insane. I keep thinking I can do this, and apparently there is no learning going on because I'm almost inevitably disappointed in myself. I had another opportunity to vacuum et al. after getting my daughter, because she wanted to unwind and watch a TV show. She suggested that I could lie down and rest and then we could go get my son. And, you know, because she made that suggestion, I was not able to turn it down. I was not able to make myself do something constructive for that blessed half-hour. Instead, I buried my face in a plush pillow and withdrew from the dirty disheveledness of my home. This was the work of the beligerent teenager in my head, whose response to scolding that I ought to use this opportunity to do something about the state of my house, which would have utterly HORRIFIED my late-mother, was, "Bite me."
My daughter finished her show, and, not wanting to be any worse of a role-model for her, we headed off to get my son and go to the gym. Not much had changed at good ol' LA Fitness. Low hip-hop music and a faint smell of chlorine greeted my ears and nostrils as I walked in. The familiar lady at the counter raised her eyebrows and said, "Hey! It's been a while!" [understatement of the year, though the year is young] "Yes." I had been going more regularly over the summer but then in the fall my daughter started field hockey practice, her first sport, and the practice times conflicted with my favorite spin (indoor cycling) class. Oh, DARN. So I got out of the habit and gained back eight of the pounds that I'd lost. The class wasn't as hard as I feared, although I did have that unpleasant burning sensation in the upper part of my right lung that happens when the air is too cold or dry. Luckily for me, the usual instructor, this amazing woman who must be in her mid sixties but moves her bike's pedals faster than any human should be reasonably able to do while simultaneously being able to breathe and yell instructions to us, was not in and our substitute was a much more reasonable woman whose classes I used to disdain as being too easy. Not today. It's amazing how quickly any semblance of fitness leaves my body. I feel like I should be able to go to the gym six or eight times in a few weeks and be fit for the rest of the year, you know?
And then I heard on the way home about the bombings in Syria and of women and children being blown to bits, before I can change the radio station. I changed it quickly. I am trying to filter my reality input so I don't get overwhelmed by the bad things going on in the world. Very much a head-in-the-sand defense strategy that I'm not entirely comfortable with adopting, but it really helps my mood. Anyway, I was too late. So, yes, I am perfectly aware that my day and my problems are nothing compared to those of others in the world getting the crap bombed out of them. So what am I supposed to do? I have no real interest in Syria other than concern for fellow humans. Am I supposed to adopt this as a cause and set up some kind of foundation to send aid over there or something? What about all the other atrocities in the world? How can I sit here in my cocooned little suburban life with spin class and field hockey practice, concern for my father-in-law who is living alone and for the fact that I haven't called my father, who is not living alone, in a month or something, and whine about how my Monday was sub-optimal? I just did! I am keeping all that away from myself and my kids and pretending it doesn't exist for real so that I can just take care of me and my own. That's lovely. I swear, sometimes I feel like what I'm really supposed to do is the Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa thing and give everything away to go help the miserably poor either here in the US or abroad, but I can't imagine actually doing it. How would I get my anti-crazy drugs? What about my husband and kids? Nope, I feel like that would be the right, ideal thing to do, but truth is, I don't want to. I want to stay here with safety and my blog and my kids and my fuzzy couch pillows. Who wouldn't? Ah, maybe it goes back to what I was talking about on the "Honor" post last month. Am I so insulated that I have no honor? Something to think about.
Incidentally, we got pageviews today from Israel, The Palestinian Territories, and Jordan.
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