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Kids

Six words that changed the way I’ll talk about my body

August 29, 2018

There are certain phrases that come from the mouths of our babes that stop us dead in our tracks. Phrases such as …

“Uh oh …”

“Shut up!”

“Don’t be mad …”

“I can’t hold it.”

“Whoops!”

Late last week we added a new one to the list.

I am a sad, snooze button-slapping sloth. My intent is always to workout in the mornings but, because of my aforementioned condition, I typically have to cram it into the evenings, right between stuffing dinner in my face and washing a child’s butt.

On one seemingly uneventful evening, I was in the basement, 10 minutes into 80 Day Obsession’s Booty day when the chicks came down. JoJo set up a ninja obstacle course and was pushing her sisters to “Jump higher!” “Run faster!” and “Do it like this!” They were running around in their sports bras (hand-me-downs from a work friend’s daughter and their latest obsession) and giggling and burning off energy and radiating innocence.

After about 20 minutes, Spike came running over, panting, and put her hands on her hips.

“Look how much weight I lost!” she declared.

I set my weights down and spun around, propelled by the sobering gravity of the statement spilling out of my 7-year-old’s lips.

“Whoa! I mean, I think you look really strong,” I said, grasping desperately for a solid, child psychologist-endorsed rebound. “And that’s what I like to see.”

She raised her eyebrows, looked over at her biceps, shrugged and went back to the course, pleased by the exchange. That made one of us.

With every squat, every leg lift that followed, I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a sinkhole of shame. I finished my workout and went up to tell Hank we were big, fat failures who could not use the words “big”, “fat” or “failure” anymore.

“We have to stop talking about our weight!” I announced. He barely turned from the dishes. “I mean it. Spike just told me she’d lost weight, and I don’t like it. We gotta get it together. Only stuff about being strong, from now on. No more rubbing our bellies, or complaining about how much we ate, or any of that.” He nodded in the agreeable way he does when I make such profound proclamations out of nowhere.

Body image is a struggle handed down from the women before us, who put their eggs in the basket of Jane Fonda, Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast and Oprah. Women who inherited the same battle from the generation that came before them. A generation that sought resolution through grapefruit, diet pills and belt massagers. It is a conflict as old as humankind – the epic tussle between vanity, health and self-acceptance.

Thinking back on my childhood, I can fondly recall my own mother’s affinity for peanut M&Ms. At night, after dinner was cleared and the children had scattered, my mom would sit down on the floor next to her bed and watch L.A. Law with a bag of the multicolored candies in her lap and make me scratch her back. At the time, I thought nothing of her evening ritual. It was endearing and just something she did, like dying her hair or snapping her fingers when she danced.

But in my house now, when I reach up into the cabinet for my after-dinner treat of two pieces of 72% cocoa chocolate, I see my daughters watching. Sometimes they’ll even say, “Watch the sug, mama.” And they’re not saying that because they’re judgmental turds. They’re saying that because I’ve unintentionally conditioned them to say that. I, along with a million forms of media and mixed messages, have formed their thoughts and placed phrases in their minds by vocalizing my own food shortfalls over and over again, in conversations that I thought were benign or far enough away from little impressionable ears.

And now, despite all my best intentions, the thing I always feared is happening. It’s being held up to my face in the form of one innocent little statement: “Look how much weight I lost.”

I naively thought I was following the protocol for bringing up healthy, well-adjusted girls. To their faces, it’s always about nourishing our bodies, getting stronger, treating ourselves well. But it hasn’t been enough. The fabricated shortcomings of our mothers and our mothers’ mothers are infiltrating my adorable chicks and I so desperately want to stop it.

I was talking about Spike’s declaration with a friend at work and she mentioned that even her oldest son, who is 6, has been talking about his “belly” and comparing himself to the other little guys in his grade. He’s 6!

What the hell? Where did it all get so screwed up?

Maybe time has quickened the affliction, but I don’t remember worrying about my body until middle school, around the time the dreaded locker room came into play and sixth graders with C cups started ruining everything. I had a short pixie haircut above my ears, braces, freckles and a chest as flat as an Indiana cornfield. That was when I started comparing myself. We all remember when we started comparing ourselves.

That same friend told me about a project her class did in first grade. They were doing some experiment with pumpkins and the teacher had the students step on a scale, first holding a pumpkin, and then without it, in order to get the weight of the squash. “I still remember pretending to be sick so I wouldn’t have to weigh myself in front of my class,” she shared. “And I wasn’t even that much bigger than the other kids.”

We all carry some of the responsibility, I suppose. For my part, I’ve been known to rub my food baby after a meal or let out a regretful groan after going for the second cinnamon roll or saying stupid shit like, “Oh, I shouldn’t,” when offered an amazing homemade pastry. I think I’m counterbalancing it by screen grabbing inspirational quotes on Instagram like, “Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do. Not a punishment for what you ate.” I think my perception is off.

How do we break the cycle? How do we convince the next generation that as long as they are using their bodies and treating them well and they feel capable in their bodies and they feel at home in their bodies, that they are doing exactly what they need to be doing? How do we make them feel proud not embarrassed, motivated not defeated, informed not passive?

Caring for yourself is a massive responsibility. It’s composed of a thousand decisions in a day and, as any mind-body guru will tell you, the body keeps score. There has to be a shift away from succumbing to the suffocating complexities of the weightloss noise and toward the beauty of caring for this precious gift we were given, this phenomenal space we get to occupy on this planet.

I’m not saying I have the roadmap to get us there. But, thanks to six little words and the mirror only a child can hold up to you, I feel like I’m waking up to the urgency of the issue at our children’s’ feet. The shift has to start somewhere. Let’s lean in a positive direction.

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Thoughts

The case for 35 being the weirdest age ever

August 12, 2018

I have been 35 now for 250 days. That is enough time to evaluate and declare that 35 really is the absolute weirdest age, perhaps of all the ages.

Maternally

I swear, if I didn’t bear the marks of the before and aftermath, I wouldn’t believe that I brought three children into this world. As close as I try to keep those memories to my heart, they feel so distant; Like a movie I watched only once back in college.

I was as certain as the sun would rise that I would just know when my family was complete. After Spike, our second, was born, I remember feeling like I’d just been introduced to the next key character in an unpredictable play, but certainly not the last. The cast wasn’t quite complete. After the next kid, I thought, then it will feel whole. Then we had Sloppy Joan, and she was the sweetest little surprise, with her old man toupee of black hair and precious features. But I was certainly cognizant of the fact that the feeling never came.

There are moments when I question whether our little family is finished. Moments that flitter in like a lost butterfly and stir up questions and scenarios and doubt. (Hank is sure, I can tell you that. Three weddings will do that to a man.) It’s like I ate an entire margherita pizza, and it was delicious, and my stomach now has more than it can handle, and I don’t want anymore of the pizza, but I still feel like maybe I would like just one more slice, because it is so damn good. But I don’t need that piece, per se.

Talking about fertility at 35 is like looking deep down into the eyes of a desperate child as the ice cream truck drives through the neighborhood. They hear it approaching and they know, if they don’t convince their parent, if they don’t get the money, if they can’t come to a decision, if they hesitate in any way, the moment will be gone. The truck will pass their block and the music will get quieter and quieter and quieter, until is it gone and the opportunity for a frozen treat has passed.

Could I still have a healthy pregnancy and subsequently a healthy baby? Probably. Will I be classified as a “geriatric pregnancy”? Yes. I’m not having a baby, and I don’t think I really want another baby, but 35 is stirring up all these really weird, frantic thoughts. I believe they are originating in my ovaries. I definitely blame my ovaries.

Physically

When I was a junior in high school, I was invited to go to Naples, Florida with one of my best friend’s family for Spring Break. I remember doing Tae-Bo in the den every day for the three weeks leading up to the trip, only to be disappointed by the results. I didn’t have the 6 pack Billy Blanks had promised. Nor were my thighs Barbie slim and toned. But when I look back at those pictures now, I see a fit girl in the prime of her youth. In fact, if I looked now the way I looked then, I would rarely wear clothes. I’m not kidding. I would just sit around in various forms of midriffs and assorted underwear items.

There are portions of my figure that will never go back, and 35 seems to be the age of acceptance in regard to that fact. The backs of my arms, the tiger stripes across my empty baby apartment, these are now permanent fixtures on my frame. And I’m OK with that. But, also, as a woman staring down the barrel of 40, I feel an urgency to get all the other parts in better condition to counterbalance the irreversible flab and stretchy sections.

The other weird thing about being 35 is that other people are starting to see me as 35. In my mind, I’m eternally 26. I look 26 and I’m agile like when I was 26. When I see a bunch of 20-somethings chatting, I feel right at home stepping in and rapping about Bachelor in Paradise and Meghan Markle’s messy bun. Until I reference Saved by the Bell and they don’t know who Mr. Belding is. Then the spool starts to unravel rather rapidly.

I remember they start drinking at 11 p.m., 2 hours past my melatonin meltaway. I have laugh lines and the beginnings of carpal tunnel. They still put oil on in the sun. I can’t do jumping jacks without wearing a diaper. They go to trampoline fitness classes. I need control-top pajamas. They wear high-waisted denim. I’m discussing the lifecycle of a window. They rent … in dangerous parts of town. And, perhaps worst of all, they didn’t watch the reboot of 90210, let alone the untouchable original. And I’m all, “Hello, when Kelly and Brenda wore the same dress to prom and Brenda lost her virginity to Dylan!?”

It’s the same elevated response I get from some of my older co-workers when they talk about David Cassidy, The Blue Lagoon or The Talking Heads.

Typically both sides recognize the glaring differences almost simultaneously, and things dissolve organically. And I’m always left thinking, “That is so weird! I’m so young!” or “I’m not that much younger.” And it’s true in both cases. Because I’m not entirely young … or old. I’m not in the spring or the winter of my life. I’m in limbo; somewhere between summer and fall. Or at least I think I am. I’m probably in some other category that only 20-somethings know about. Gah dang it!

Professionally

Ah, the workforce. The jungle. The true-life version of The Office that won’t be canceled for 30 more seasons. I am fortunate enough to truly love what I do. I get to write. I get to tell stories. I get to be creative. My speciality – social media – is a young person’s game, but it order to do it at a corporate level, one must possess a certain level of experience and restraint.

In the corporate world, I’m not a girl, not yet a boardwoman. I know my stuff but I succumb to seniority on a daily basis. There’s a certain way I like to do business regardless of age, which is with respect for all of the opinions in the room and with the collaboration dialed way up. But that’s not always on the lesson plan in the old school. And when it’s not, I’m very aware of the professional gap in which a 35-year-old career woman resides. I don’t need a ping pong table in the breakroom, but I need to splash some water on my creative roots between the hours of 8am and 5pm. It can’t’ be just a paycheck. I think my generation was one of the first to really call out and name the notion of work/life balance, but there’s a lag in implementation in larger corporate environments. If I reach out, I can almost touch it. Almost.

I wrestle with when to assert myself (probably not often enough) and when to let a more experienced soldier win the war. I have peers who have climbed the ladder and peers who are still on the second rung, and I think we’re all just trying to figure out which asshole designed the five-day workweek and blazers. We’re in a weird place professionally, at 35.

Mentally

Being 35 means having both all of the time in the world and no time at all. If I’m going to Beyonce the situation, I’m done. It’s over. The window for me to reach my potential has been closed, nailed down and sealed shut. Beyonce left Destiny’s Child in 2006, when she was approximately 26 years old. We all know where the story went from there. She’s basically Oprah with a better set of pipes and killer Instagram profile. I mean, her pregnancy announcements alone, come on! When I was 26 I still had vintage cigarette posters on my wall, and those were my “sophisticated artwork”. In comparison to the Queen Bey I have already failed at 35.

If I compare myself to, we’ll go with Jane Lynch, the view is a little brighter. She didn’t land her breakout role (“Best in Show”) until she was in her early 40s, and then she just went full out sprint from there. If I think about it like that, I’ve got a little space here. Not enough space to slack off, but enough to keep plugging away at my dreams.

It’s a mind game I play with myself a lot lately. Do I have enough time to [fill in the blank]? Did I wait too long to [fill in the blank]? Should I have [fill in the blank] years ago? I’ve passed by so many opportunities and yet I have so many stretched out before me. I’m 35 and either my best years are behind me or the best is yet to come. Let’s hope it’s the latter, ay?

All of this to say that 35 has been just so weird. I mean really freaking great, but weird. At least the 250 days of it I’ve experienced so far. I’m confident that, when the time comes, I’ll mourn my 30s (including 35) just as I mourn my 20s in some ways.

In the words of the great Jimmy Eat World:

It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright

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Wellness

How to properly play the shame game

October 27, 2016

Subj: Your race day photos are here!

Pictures are a strange thing, aren’t they? Depending on the angle, the movement, the moment, they can either elevate you or level you. How silly that a simple image – a blink, a blip – can have such impressive power. And the photos in this email were going to be special. Not only would they offer some frameable moments with my bestie and proof I showed up, but they would also capture my epic photobomb of a dear family friend at the finish.

But it was another bomb that detonated that day.

I opened the email. “Oy, that’s a rough picture,” I thought, not overly rocked. I clicked “next”. My face scrunched higher. “That’s not-a … not great either.” As I scrolled, my eyebrows raised and met in a rippled, disgusted collision between my eyes. The cadence of my finger on the mouse quickened. “Next”. “Next”. “Next”. I squinted and tightened my lips, revealing the tops of my bottom teeth. These proofs, all of them, were painful. Sobering.

Now, let’s pause here, shall we? This post is not an easy post to write. It’s also not an invitation for criticism or a passive plea for praise, though I can see how it would be mistaken for such. It is, like all musings on this blog, merely an observation and pitstop on my personal road to self discovery and improvement. I nearly ditched the topic altogether when, on two separate occasions in the past two days with two separate friends, the mere mention of this blog was instantaneously halted by dams of positive praise. “Stop! You look great.” “Oh my gosh, you’re crazy!’ Which, to be fair, is exactly what I would do, because that’s what our friends and parents are supposed to do. They’re trained to do it. It’s what’s socially acceptable. But I wasn’t baiting the hook that day, and I had no desire to go fishing.

Hand over my heart, I’m just trying to start an honest dialogue about the distance between the pins on my map. The ones marking where I thought I was, where I am, and where i want to go. I should be able to talk about that without people instinctively coddling my delicate inner child, or thinking I’m licking rice cakes and crying over Coldstone Creamery, or (the worst) that I brought my ego out for a good stroking only to be put back on the shelf for a few weeks before I prompt them to appease me again. Not that I think these girls thought that, or that I would think that about them if the conversation were reversed. I just think we’re so quick to console and then shut it down, rather than engage and encourage real change in the people we love.

What if, instead of my weight or my shape, I was commenting on my smoking habit. Seriously … just think about it. If I came to someone and said, “Gosh, you know, I’ve been smoking for years and I really think it’s time to reign it in and clean things up around here.” No one would say, “Oh Courtney … it relaxes you and you’re only having 8 a day!” No.

When I was training for that race, I didn’t feel great. I felt amazing after the long runs, yes. But mostly because they were over. I felt empowered by my endurance, yes. But my body didn’t feel like the body of a person who was running 8, 9, 10 miles. It felt weak. Like I was willing it to perform. Still my perception of the changes happening to my body was positive. But to lay it all out there, what I was seeing in myself throughout the 12 weeks was something that far exceeded the woman floundering in front of me on the screen in those post-race pics. And, you guys, that’s OK. l’m OK addressing it. In fact, I feel empowered and kind of on fire because of it.

If Oprah and I were sitting around chatting about our truth and what we keep in our closets and all those hidden jewels she digs up when people perch upon her magic couch, a lot of things would come out. I used my heightened exertion as a free pass to take all foods – sweet, salty, fried, fast – to Pound Town. I was eating to compensate for what I thought I was burning … what I wasn’t burning. And I wasn’t eating to fuel, either. I was eating for fun. And from boredom. And as reward.

But as my new best friend Brené Brown (whose book, “Rising Strong” is currently blowing my mind and should be on your goodreads list right now) says, “Shame cannot survive once spoken.” So I’m sayin’ it, baby: I have not been good to myself.

Again, let’s pause. I want to be clear that this is not a body shaming situation, guys. (When did everything become “shaming” anyway? Fat shaming. Skinny shaming. Bachelor shaming. I actually had a craft beer guy at a liquor store cider shame me once.) That’s not my jam. I love my body. This body carried and delivered three babies. It ran 13.1 miles … twice! It carried me over close to a dozen mountains on zero sleep for four consecutive, very cold days. And it has held up generally well considering my lackluster maintenance regimen. It is flawed, yes, for many reasons, many of which I count as my biggest blessings.

This is not a conversation about vanity. It’s about confronting personal negligence. It’s about acknowledging my sincere love for this body and where I want to see it go, then finding the silence to listen to what it is telling me it needs to get there. I rarely sit in quiet. Do you?

By this point in the post you’ve either bailed (therefore not reading this) or you’re straddling the fence between empathy and exasperation. I get it. I anticipated that. I’ve wanted to write about my come-to-Jesus moment for weeks, but haven’t. I haven’t because body image is icy. Everywhere you look people are either embracing their full figures and shutting down shamers, or collecting criticism for projecting unrealistic expectations onto young girls. You can’t win for waking up in the morning. It’s slippery and juicy with judgement. And because I don’t count myself as obese or emaciated, but somewhere in the soft center, I often feel I don’t have the right to voice my dissatisfaction with what I see. But considering 91 percent of women report being unhappy with their bodies, I don’t think I’m necessarily alone out on this limb, either. I don’t think I’m the only person to ever declare: I have work to do here!

Not only do I often fear it’s unjustified, it also seems baited. Because I have 6 little eyes constantly watching my reactions and listening to my self-deprecating commentary. One day, when I went to pick up the girls, JoJo walked up and handed me a piece of paper.

“Here Mom.”
“Thanks! What is this?”
“It’s the number for Nutrisystem.”
“Ohhhhh … OK. JoJo, can I ask, do you think I need Nutrisystem?”
“Well, you’re always talking about how you ate too much, and they help people who eat too much.”

Boom! Trap snapped.

Standing there, holding that piece of paper, my mind Googled every phrase I’d uttered over the past 7 years that had anything to do with being pregnant with a food baby, stuffed, gross and, yeah, fat. The results were deep.

But that’s more of a word choice issue I’d say. I do want them to see me striving, reaching, working hard to be something more tomorrow than I am today. Again, the war I’m waging is not against my body. It is for my body. I choose to fight it out of my desire to be strong. It is a battle rooted in love and love is nothing without respect. Respect for where I’ve been. Respect for where I want to go, and know I can. I have not been respecting this body. What I saw in those pictures was the mirror I’ve been refusing to buy. (You know the one in the dressing rooms at Target that makes you look green and cellulitey.) It was a face-down moment, and what comes next is up to me.

Brené defines integrity as, “choosing courage over comfort. Choosing what is right over what is fun, fast and easy. And choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” She goes on to explain that people tend to treat you the way they see you treating yourself. You have to stand strong in your integrity.

I carve out at least 30 minutes every morning to move. I have lost 36 pounds since having Sloppy Joan two years ago. I have made great strides and I’m not embarrassed about the way I look, but I have regrets tied to my stalled progress. I have regrets about where I could be compared to where I am. And I’m not mad about that.

Regret is another label with a bad reputation. Why should we pocket regret? Why shouldn’t we listen to it and use it to fire us up inside? In Rising Strong, Brene writes, “To say you have no regret is to deny the possibility of a braver life.” Heck yeah I want a braver life! It’s indifference that really frightens me. Feeling regret is a cue that I want something more. It instigates motivation to change. Casey spoke about her fear of an uninteresting life and I think a lot of us shoulder that same worry. What would happen if we took all the energy we spent mourning and rolling around in regret and instead harnessed it as a fierce catalyst to move in the direction of our dreams?

I was listening to a podcast recently with the blogger from Strong Coffey. She was talking about the power of redirecting our thoughts of comparison. “When you’re about to unleash all the negative things in life, try to hold onto it, regroup and instead share a little more of who you wish you were these days.” It’s an exercise in visualization. Instead of letting yourself be swallowed by feelings of inadequacy, by the regrets, focus on where you, personally, are going. It’s your journey. Keep your eye on the prize and your feet and heart will follow.

Brené also shares, “There is so much knowledge in our bodies and we just have to learn how to listen.” My arms are telling me to lift what’s heavy. My head is telling me to stop sleeping with the sexy excuses. My gut is pleading with me to shed the secret sugar binges and grab what’s clean. My feet are reassuring me they can go further. It’s talking and I’m really trying to quiet down and listen.

I’ve covered miles and have miles to go. I’m just giving my shame a name in an effort to shut it down and make it something that waters my soul instead. Something that feeds and fosters growth. I want this for the little ones watching my example, of course, but mostly for the me I haven’t met yet. I want to find her, years from now, on a sun-lit peak just inches from the clouds, with a big smile on her face and nothing but light and love in her heart. I’m not asking for your sympathy or for you to talk me down off the ledge. But if you ever want to meet me at the top of the mountain, I’ll save ya a spot.