And I mean this 'For Real...'

And I went to the gym...

So, I am starting back up at the gym.  Its been a long time coming.  I don't understand why I go long stretches of time between my spurts as a gym goer.  I feel good when I am there.  I feel good, albeit a painful good afterward.  Yet, that first step out the door is the most difficult one.  I want to say its step 638 on the elliptical, but its not.  Its lacing up the shoes and walking out the front door that is the real challenge.

And they all sacked out.

Tonight, a Saturday, by 9:30pm everyone in my house (except me, of course) was asleep. I am usually Queen of letting my kiddos get off schedule on the weekend. I guess so far this weekend they have had too much fun and need some beauty rest. :)

Regardless of my exhaustion level, I cannot physically (and sometimes not even medication induced) go to sleep for the night before 11pm or so, and I say 11pm optimistically, some hellish nights its like 2am. When I have unsuccessfully tried going to bed when my kids do, I end up waking up around midnight with my body wanting a second wind at the day. It is incredibly frustrating.

In talking with other women in a similar position in life (late 20's to mid 30's, married a couple of kids, etc) I am finding that I am not alone. I am glad I am not an anomaly and that other people are sharing a similar misery. But of course, being of I am, it makes me bed the question "why?" Why if we do so much, think so much, manage so much, and have their weight of the world on our shoulders everyday can we not fall down in exhaustion into a blissful slumber the very first moment the opportunity arises? Why are our bodies fighting us?

I think it comes down to the whole being everything to everyone phenomena. Our minds don't shut down. While we have been being everything, and doing everything for everyone all day we haven't had time to think for ourselves (I don't mean opinions, etc. I mean, think about things that only pertain to us as individuals), be ourselves, or just enjoy being who we are. Once we have no one to worry about, I think a euphoric calm rushes over us and our bodies don't want to let that time go.

This is equally frustrating because I can lay down any afternoon of the week (if I have the chance, the opportunity is rare, rare, rare!) and catch a snooze of an hour or two with no problem, regardless of exhaustion level. I just wish I could do that around 9:30pm on the random Tuesday.

The beautiful girl pictured above usually stays up and keeps me company. Not so much luck tonight, she is snoring almost as loud as my hubby by my feet.

And she makes me so proud!

Hannah makes me so proud! She has been taking tumbling since the middle of May and now has her backhandspring! We, or at least I, could take a lesson from this kid. Every time Hannah says she is going to do something she does it. Hannah never doesn't achieve her goals. She isn't an especially charmed kid. She just works incredibly hard. She works and works and works. I am so excited to see what she is going to accomplish in the future. I am sure it will be nothing but great things.

And so it can happen...

I hate that moment more than anything. I have experienced it more times than I care to count. The feeling of powerlessness it washes over me hurts inside in so many ways. I have someone in my life that for as long as I can remember has been able to bait me in a way no one else can. This person can push my buttons, hurt me, taunt me, and more often than not turn my anger into tears. Negative interactions with this person vs. positive interactions are a very screwed up, unhealthy ratio. I am learning with age and expensive therapy that no one controls how I feel, especially about myself. I have struggled for years with wanting something but thinking that either: A. I wasn't capable of it. or B. I didn't deserve it. This is one of the underlying reasons why the first time around in college I didn't apply myself and also why I am nearly 30 years old and finally earning my Bachelor's Degree.

My first time around in college I was distracted. I dreamed about going to college from the time I was about 8 years old. Very few people in my family (no one in my immediate family) went to college. No one graduated. The first time around in college (right out of high school) I felt like I didn't belong. I felt 'out classed' for lack of better term.

I was a Hispanic girl in a white bread town, on scholarship, unable to get a job (unless you count telemarketing in a shady establishment that was later raided by the FBI), pinching my pennies, living off of my saving and minimum wage that I earned on breaks to put myself through school. Looking back now, that should be a source of pride- working hard to achieve your dreams... But I felt ashamed. I felt flat-out ashamed. I had parents at home who could have helped me out financially, even just a little bit, but chose not to. Their take on it was making your own way through the world and you are an adult now- no longer our responsibility, blah blah. In theory this might have been a good idea. I let myself not do well in school because I didn't feel like I could handle the task of financially supporting myself through 4 years of school. For someone who had just turned 18 in the week before moving away to school and no job prospects or guidance in a small town, I felt like I was drowning.

But to me, with my background and past, I felt like if my parent's didn't want to help me through college it was because they didn't think I was worth it. Or would yet that I couldn't hack what I was trying to accomplish. When my roommates would get even $20 or $30 bucks from their parents for groceries I felt a twinge of envy. I was envious of the parents back home who supported them and believed in them. And maybe my parents did, they didn't say and I didn't feel it.

Feeling it is what is essential. And back from that long winded tangent and to my point. I interacted with that person this week. The one who can bait me and 'cause' my emotions to spiral out of control. The one who can take my happiness and reduce it to tears on a dime.

I am proud to say that I had an interaction this week where I did not let it happen. I did not let them bait me. I did not let anything they said reduce me to tears. The feeling was one of a power I have never felt before. This person can no longer control how I feel. I realized that I do. I can't change the way they treat me. I can't change the way they talk to me. I have tried on both counts and it is fruitless. I cannot change the way they perceive me or their feelings about/towards me. What I can change is how I react to this person.

I know it sounds so simple. Obviously, you can change how you react to a person. To most people this is kindergarten behavior expectations. No one else controls your reactions but you. It has taken me nearly 30 years to feel like *I* control my emotions. It has taken me this long to realize that no one 'makes' me cry or feel bad about who I am. This realization has given me a new sense of self-empowerment and self-control.

The people I love the most may hurt me and hurt me deeply, and sometimes they may even do it intentionally, but I control what I do with it. I control how deep it goes. I control the reaction they get from me. They may throw the hurt out there, but I control if it sticks.

And this is what happens when you ask your kids to be dishonest....

This is precisely what you get when you ask your kids to be dishonest. Yes, that is a plate of alfalfa sprouts and only alfalfa sprouts. Last night we went to Brick Oven Pizza for dinner. Now, let me clarify in addition to plates of sprouts Brick Oven has to die for pizza and an unparalleled salad bar. Their salad bar has the perfect variety of toppings without being overwhelming. The toppings are always fresh and you never see sad lettuce or mushrooms that look past their prime. That is just not how Brick Oven rolls. However, there is one slight issue I have with Brick Oven.

Their pizza is simply ah-mazing! You have to get their pizza and their salad bar or the trip to Brick Oven is wasted. The issue lies in the fact that a one-trip salad bar is $4.19! Yes, $4.19. Not only is one trip $4.19, but the plate is small. It is an appetizer plate. However, they can charge $4.19 and customers don't balk at the idea (at least not directly) because the salad bar is that great. Herein lies the caveat, when I eat salad from a salad bar I must have seafood salad with a couple of club crackers. I just must. However, when challenged with amazing and fresh toppings and only one appetizer plate, one must get creative or pay $8.99 for multiple trips to the salad bar.

Now, here is the beauty of having kids. Hannah ordered the kids all-you-care-to-eat Market Room Buffet- which is where the amazing salad bar is located. I thought my problem was solved. I asked Hannah to go and get me some seafood salad on a plate on one of her many salad bar trips. At first she complained, but when she realized how insistent I was and that she wasn't going to win, she succumbed and went to retrieve my seafood salad. She returned with the plate of alfalfa spouts. I gave her a puzzled look. "Isn't that seafood salad?" she asked. She genuinely thought that was my sought after seafood salad. I explained to her what it actually is and she still looked confused. Chris got up and accompanied her to the salad bar, pointed out the seafood salad, which she dished up one spoonful on an appetizer plate and walked it back to me at the table. And that spoonful seafood salad, was delicious!

For asking Hannah (who is ethical to a fault) to bend the rules, I deserved a plate of alfalfa sprouts. Or Brick Oven needs to offer a standard sized plate for $4.19. You decide.

And we battle...

We stop checking for monsters underneath our beds, when we realize they are inside of us. I think there is a critical point in our development, for some it may happen in childhood, for lucky others not until adolescence when we realize we are their own demon.

You've heard it before and you will hear it again, "We are our own worst enemy." No statement ever rung more true. We cut ourselves down. We compare ourselves to others. We criticize. We self-sabotage. We set unrealistic standards. We berate ourselves. We are unforgiving. We are our biggest roadblock.

My therapist (yes, I have a therapist) calls it "The Voice." The dialogue in your head that you just can't squelch. Its the running commentary in your mind telling you that you look fat in those jeans, that your colleague doesn't want to go to lunch with you so don't ask, your spouse 'has' to compliment you, and at times goes as far as telling you that 'everyone else' is better/happier/skinnier/more accomplished that you are or ever will be. It is the voice that regularly reminds us that we are not everything to everyone (but we should be), we are not celebrity skinny (but we should be), we are not as good (at anything) as the next guy/gal (and never will be) and we aren't as smart as we could be (and eveyone else is, of course).

Since putting a name to it ("The Voice"), I wonder why we can't just tell it to shut the hell up and be done with it. Why is it more complicated than that? In my interpretation, the voice is a cumulative compilation of everything we have ever been told. The good things are a whisper, whereas the bad things are a shout. The amount of whispers may outnumber the amount of shouts, say tenfold or even twentyfold (that may or may not be a word), but one shout can drown out ten whispers as if they were never spoken. One shout can zap those whispers and draw the attention of all. All that remains is the echo of the shouting.

We would all be productive, ideal, stable, genuinely happy and make perfect sense- if it were simple enough to just tell the voice to shut the hell up and occassionally have to give it a quick reminder when it started to stir again. But, we are human and alas nothing is ever that simple. We have our demons; battle, battle and battle yet again, and rarely win the game.

We are our own monsters. Our adult minds are our childhood boogie man.