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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

Livin la Vida Vegan Day 5 (fake eggs and fog)

September 21, 2017

7:15 a.m.
A 2-hour delay? Damn you, fog! Damn you straight to Chuck E. Cheese (my equivalent of hell). The girls would get a delay the week we don’t have a sitter at the house to get them on the bus. How do you get both Employee and Mom of the Year in one swift move? Oh, dear friends, just sit back and observe. I threw together my vegan-friendly morning smoothie and did what I had to do. I took those turkeys into work and used technology to keep them on the up and up for an hour and a half. Oh, you want to search random terms on YouTube? Here are some headphones! Videos with creepy adults opening eggs? Yup, yup, sounds great.

[Dramatic sigh] “I need more coffee today,” I said to myself, Spike smacking the meat of her juicy apple around with her tongue and tiny teeth in my ear as I browsed my inbox.
“No problem, Mom. I’ll run to the cafeteria and get you some,” JoJo said, like she was my 22-year-old secretary on the set of Mad Men.
“No honey, I’m just fine. But thank you.”

9:10 a.m.
I dropped the eldest chicks at the bus stop and darted in the house to grab a bonus mug of coffee with Califia Farms Pecan Caramel Creamer (a gift from my friend Elizabeth). That stuff is DANGEROUS. I love it in a way one shouldn’t love a coffee creamer, ya know?

11 a.m.
Nope, nope … not gonna make it to lunch today, I pulled out my emergency stash of trail mix, Nuts and Berries from Costco, my favorite. Listening to Rich Roll’s audiobook this morning, he was talking about how his vegan diet evolved. He eventually replaced protein powder with spirulina, and his typical mixed nut blend with Brazil nuts and walnuts. My diet, too, is already evolving … I’ve decided to replace miso with … anything else.

12:15 p.m.
Lunch was a repeat for me again today. This is my m.o. I find something that works – in this case a mixed green salad with quinoa/rice, a salad topper mix and Greek dressing with a side of veggie hummus with tortilla chips – and I beat it to death. But a positive check-in from Hank. He loves both the Seeds of Change Organic Brown Rice and Quinoa pouch and the instant pho bowls I got from Costco. He went so far as to say the pho was better than the offerings at his go-to Vietnamese joint. Best news I’ve gotten all day.

“I think we need more protein,” I told him. “Start throwing hemp hearts on stuff, k?”

Not that my husband isn’t capable of feeding himself, but because this was my idea and I make the grocery list, I feel a very unique pressure here to keep his belly full and his head in a good place. The kids are a different story. I can throw cheese cubes at them to calm the storm. We’re going two family members at a time here.

2:45 p.m.
A perk of picking up the girls in the afternoon, just five hours after I dropped them off in the exact same spot, is catching up on the elementary school scoop. For almost a week now, Spike has been wrestling between two of her classmates. They both want her to be their girlfriend, and the romantic turmoil has been agony for all of us. Today’s update went as follows:

“What’s up babe? How was your day?”
“Fine,” she said.
“Who’d you play with?”
“Ugh, well I think I’m going to be boyfriend/girlfriend with Connor,”
“Really? I thought we talked about that and you were just going to be a good friend to both of them so you didn’t hurt anybody’s feelings or break daddy’s heart.”
“Well, I just can’t take Hunter.”
“No?”
“No! Today he drew a huge circle on his desk in pencil and colored it in. And you know that stains, which makes it an elephant problem. And the custodian is going to be so mad, so I told on him.”
“You tattled?”
“Well, yeah. But he had it coming. And then Conner asked if I wanted to play football at recess and I was like, ‘I’m not much of a football girl, but thank you for asking me.’ And I let him throw the ball to me.”
“Well, sounds like you and Connor had a fun day.”
“Yeah, plus, Hunter eats paper. Like, a lot. So …”

And there it is. Love on the rocks, ain’t no big surprise. Another casualty of careless paper consumption.

6:30 p.m.
We’re big fans of brinner. Nothing is better than pancakes for supper on a cool autumn evening, am I right? As I was menu planning, I found myself yearning for something semi-familiar in the sea of tempeh and seitan, when I came across this recipe for The Best Vegan Breakfast Sandwiches, and thought … there you are, lover.

Please, please don’t disappoint me, I pleaded to the assortment of ingredients as I went about prepping for the herd. Mama just can’t take another night of mediocre flavors.

For tonight’s installment of, “What the hell’s this made of?” we turn to egg replacer. I mixed it up in the blender with cold water, poured it into the skillet and watched in amazement as the liquid solidified into a foamy, spongy giant fake egg frisbee. Flipping it was a test of skill, of which I failed. Hank looked at the ingredients.

“So, essentially, this is instant potatoes,” he concluded. I shrugged. “It has no redeeming nutritional qualities, aside from a little bit of fiber.”

Potato starch aside, guys, I gotta tell ya, these sandwiches were FIRE. I loved them, every bite. I used mixed greens, and kite hill cream cheese and some sprouted grain buns I got in the freezer section at Earth Fare. We even added a slice of daiya cheddar, just to be indulgent. I roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes and a plantain that was hours from going bad, and cut up a mango and apple for dessert. I dipped my veggies sparingly in daiya ranch dressing, which is a delight.

While this meal scored big on flavor and morale boosting, it felt like a lie. Like the equivalent of Sex With Your Pants On for Whole30. Nothing was derived from animals, but it felt a little too human, if ya know what I mean. Hank made the comment, “I feel like the longer we’re vegan, the more processed our diets get.” It’s not the sandwich’s fault. But if we’re going to do this, I want to do it right.

7:45 p.m.
I missed my run because Hank had to make one of his own, for Pull Ups and cold medicine. I did a Fitsugar barre dance workout and felt pretty good. The energy level is picking up, folks!

Try That With Matt

Try that with Matt. 90-mile month.

February 14, 2017

I have an ongoing list of ideas for these monthly challenges with my brother. Some of the things are just a matter of time (a bar crawl in kayaks, coming this summer!), while others might never happen (backpacking through Ireland?). The point is their dreams … aspirations … wishes on stars that might actually be satellites. Now, obviously, sustaining this little project – 12 challenges a year – means the entire list can’t be all grand excursions and riding on elephants. We have to pepper in some practical for good measure. These vanilla additions are challenging, but achievable. Adventurous but local. Exciting but not as exhilarating as the biggies. So when my brother picked one of these “practical” items for the first month of the year, I was kind of, unintentionally, a turd about it.

January Challenge: Run 3 miles every day of the month. No excuses. No crying.

It could have been worse. I believe I actually had, “Complete a 100-mile month” on the list, so this was technically an improvement. We would be coming in around 90 miles (should have been 93, but we gave each other one pass). It was going to get real, and it wasn’t going to be fun, and it wasn’t going to be really fun.

**MATT**

Jon Sutherland – who holds the record for running on the most consecutive days – has completed at least one mile every single day for over 17,000 days in a row. That’s 45 years and 2 days, a number that will be outdated by the time you read this post. So, when I suggested we run 3 miles a day every day for 31 days in January, I thought it would be a piece of cake. I’ll spare you the suspense. It wasn’t.

In fact, it was whatever the polar opposite of cake is. Something awful, that smells bad. But despite the fact that it was a complete pain in the ass, now that it’s over, I can look back and say there was never a time I went for a run and didn’t feel like the reset button had been hit after. We all struggle to make time for ourselves, at least that seems to be the trend with myself and my peers that have children. We are all too busy shuffling our kids here and there, and staying after work, and grabbing things at the grocery, and cleaning our houses, that we end up with a million reasons why we can’t make it to the gym. And who can blame us?

I think that this is what I took away from the challenge this month; that I’m full of bullshit excuses. Did I drop some lbs and get in better shape? Yes. Oh, and I have to mention it just to piss my sister off, your boy was a “super user” at the Y for the month of January. You know this shit! (Didn’t see your name up there, DSS.) Yes, my party pants now fit a little looser so I don’t have to worry about them splitting when I am out there on the dance floor dropping it like it’s hot, or … Oh, wait … I’m 39…. I mean I don’t have to worry about my Levis splitting up the crotch when I am squatting down to check out the soft batch cookies on sale. But even more than all that, I realized that we can ALL make time for ourselves if we really want to. And it’s important.

Going to the gym is not being selfish. It’s just taking 30-60 minutes for yourself to set a good example for your kids and for you to get that healthy release so when you do go home you don’t unload your stress on your family. We are all guilty of it. We all have shitty days when we don’t want to go workout, we don’t want to cram one more thing in. We just want to stuff our fat faces with chocolate chip cookies the consistency of pillows and watch 20 episodes of The Office. And it feels good for a second, but 20 minutes later, when you are doing dishes, laundry, etc., and you’re so filled with stress it’s exploding out of your beard hair holes, guess what … someone’s ass is getting yelled at. Then you feel like an asshole. A cookie-eating asshole. Because you know they didn’t really deserve it. And you know if you would have just taken your fatass to the gym, you could have avoided the whole verbal beat down.

We all struggle with the same things, even though we feel alone. You let yourself go and don’t want to feel judged going back to the gym. You’re unsure of how to use equipment. One of the hardest things for me is the voice in my head telling me to grab the chips and the remote. But you have to squash those thoughts and take care of you! Nobody is judging you and people are always happy to help if you just ask. And guess what, after you workout, you don’t want the chips anyway.

You only get one go at this life and you don’t want to spend it sitting on your ass, do you? You don’t have to run every single day for 31 days, but challenge yourself to get to the gym or get a workout in each day, and see what it does for your attitude or how it motivates the people around you. This challenge has helped kick start my cardio workouts again, I know that. I was in a funk for the past year where all I did was work and make excuses why I couldn’t get to the gym. It is so easy to give up on goals, but you know what feels even better than sitting on the couch and relaxing? Unleashing that inner beast you have been hiding under excuses! Anyone can quit, but who wants to be just anyone? Not me.

Note: Do not ask DSS to be your gym buddy if you decide on a consecutive run challenge, we just started talking again the beginning of February. Good job, Sis! Love you!

**ME**

I don’t know how many times he told me, reminded me, that this was technically my idea. It takes a special kind of jackass – my kind, apparently – to propose 31 days of running in a row. Hank and I had company on New Year’s Day and I knew right away this was going to be a bitch. I didn’t want to run. It was the first day of the challenge. I’d been in a dark place during a Try That with Matt before, I mean these can’t all be fun, but unlike the spin class at the asscrack of dawn after a night of drinking, this one was a slow burn.

I always have something to say, this you know by now, but I don’t have much to say for this one. There were points where I was literally angry with Matt for picking it. How messed up is that? I was projecting my disappointment in my physical ability and lack of positivity onto that poor innocent old man.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asked.
“Ugh, kind of.” I said, ashamed.
“I can tell! I feel it.”

It only made it worse that he seemed to be loving it. Loving it! Running! Every day! Every stupid day. It was like he was having some sort of life-altering realization and I was just trying to draft behind him for survival.

**Random interjection**

Speaking of, the Grammy’s are on in the background as I write this. Does anyone else feel emotionally inadequate when they watch Beyonce perform? Her style of musical storytelling leaves me bewildered at times. Like, I know I should be feeling something very deeply but I’m not 100 percent sure what those feelings are exactly. Oh, it’s women empowerment … wait, wait, it’s forgiveness … no, I think it’s about looking like my mom and thanking her for offering me her womb? Oh God, Oh God! The chair is tipping back, you guys! The chair, is tipping, back. OK, she’s down. Phew! I mean, she’s badass, regardless. It’s all just a little confusing for me personally.

**End of random interjection**

Every day we would exchange proof of mileage. I would typically go in the mornings and send him a snapshot of the watch I use to track laps. It takes 27 laps to equal 3 miles. Yes, 27 laps. But it’s OK, you guys, because every other day they make you switch directions. So, I had that going for me. Matt would go in the evenings, so I’d get a pic of the panel on his sweat-soaked treadmill. I always picture the people on the machines next to him squinting and holding up their hands as his perspiration pounds them like a Hummer through a spring puddle. He kept getting faster and faster. I, on the other hand, seemed to be dragging as the days went by.

And I hurt everywhere. I read this article recently about how running just one mile every day was proven to increase mental clarity, creativity and physical longevity. Yeah, maybe. Maybe one mile a day feels a lot different than three. Cuz three hurt. My achilles was tighter than harp strings. My hamstrings were harder than an old man’s beer belly. My lower back ached, the bottoms of my feet were tender and I just felt, generally, like a broken old fart.

It wasn’t all bad, I guess. There was an unseasonable break in the weather and I did a few runs outside. That’s so much better for my soul. I love checking things out, listening to my music. But, no, for the most part I was a miserable, cranky turd for the entirety of the month. Remember, I was simultaneously Whole30-ing, so while Tons of Fun could run and then murder a 2-pound meatloaf burger (That really happened. I know, because I gave it to him.), I was chasing my miles with plantain tortillas and 5,000 avocados. The whole thing, for me, was just really brutal. I’d never been happier for freaking February in my life.

Onto the next …

Wellness

Posers

January 21, 2016

When it comes to various forms of exercise – Turbo Kick, spinning, Piloxing, rowing, running, weight-lifting – I would call myself a dabbler of many and a master of none. I love trying new things. I love mixing it up and feeling lost and figuring things out. I enjoy making my muscles guess and seeing how certain activities show up in varying, albeit always mediocre, degrees of tone.

Of all the pastimes I play at, one of my favorites has to be yoga. I can’t morph into a scorpion pose or stand on my hands for 5 minutes straight, but I can hang with the best of them in pigeon or chill for days in child’s pose. After so many days of sitting at a desk, jogging a bit and lifting the ole 8 pounders, my body will typically start asking me for a little TLC time on the mat. And I have no problems saying yes.

I tried the beginner stretch class at our gym and I just couldn’t dial in my zen. I hated the circular setup and the fact that I grazed my neighbor’s knuckles every time I dove for my toes. Just so distracting and uncomfortable. It felt like entertaining a crowd during a super intimate moment, like trying on bras with your neighbor or something. No, no … I much prefer a side-by-side sesh with my main man and the chicks.

We have our favorites. Of course our little turkeys have a soft spot for Jaime and her magical jammies on Cosmic Kids. (Full disclosure: I, too, get pretty wrapped up in her wild adventures.) And we regularly spend YouTube time feeling the Yoga with Adriene flow. She’s just the right dose of hippy dippy and has an impressive library of videos. Plus, as a marketing gal, I love her branding.

But our ultimate go-to is Tara. We love Tara Stiles. There’s something so endearing about the way she comforts and says, “It’s just yoga, guys. It should be fun,” in her lackadaisical vocal cadence, leading you from pose to pose. Or at the conclusion when she almost childishly says, “Thank you for coming!” It’s like her signature punctuation mark. All of her flows are familiar, with most of the same moves, but every once in a while she slides in a challenge to keep you coming back for more.

This set is great. It’s a perfect place to start or a tremendous complement to your yoga studio habit.

It feels indulgent to stretch and decompress and contort your overly tight figure into something a bit more malleable. Certain poses scream at me to change my daily routine or posture, or visit it more often. There are times when I’m upside down and feel like my cheeks are going to explode right off my face, but overall, yoga is a free drug for what ails ya. One of these days maybe I’ll fully commit to the practice and finally hold that handstand. But for now child’s pose is definitely what the doctor ordered. Go get you some.

Wellness

Pinned and pumped

September 1, 2015

I’ve openly embraced my blog addiction (that’s the first step to recovery, right?), and now it’s time to discuss the perks of my Pinterest one as well. I have thousands of recipes – paleo, Whole30, greasy, sweet, primal – you name it, but my pride and joy is the Work out, already board.

There’s some great stuff on there. And when I can’t make a class, and it’s not a run day and I’m not feeling a yoga flow, it’s fun to dip into my pins for a fresh option.

A quick synopsis of my faves you need to follow:

I am somewhat obsessed with Pumps & Iron. The workouts are easy to understand, pretty and pinnable, and juuuuust tough enough. I did this one last night and I gotta be honest, when it was over I felt like a big guy at a Vegas buffet; 100 percent satisfied. I might be so bold as to declare her my reigning fitness Pinterest princess.

Hollie and I have history. Our husbands were fraternity brothers, we’ve bonded over beers in smalltown bars and I’m truly proud of what she’s putting out there. Her Cardio Sculpt circuits are great for the days you don’t have a lot of time and you want to feel beautifully badass.

The thing that makes Karena and Katrina so attractive – aside from their obvious asssssssets – is their quirky, endearing banter. It truly feels like you’re getting your ass handed to you by a couple of girlfriends. And you can buy into their whole beachy keen lifestyle. The handsome fiances, muscle tightening as the tide rolls in, hard-earned cocktails in their freshly manicured grasps. They have their Instagram, blog, email and Pinterest game on point, and I so love swinging through this Kettleball video.

4.

I’m going to tell you flat out that POPSUGAR has perfected the art of the attention-grabbing blog title. Lose your love handles … beat bra bulge … drop weight without even trying … it’s a master class is hooking the reader. All that and the videos are dang good. I have a million on my board, of all different lengths and styles. It’s a mixed bag of brutal options, and for that reason, I’m super sweet on POPSUGAR.

Wellness

Spinning my wheels

March 14, 2015

Tune in today to see if she can … survive a spin class.

As a new gym goer, I am quietly, privately geeking out about all the classes. I love trying new things as it is, but a paid membership and knowledgeable instructor are even greater incentive to jump into a room full of strangers and sweat profusely. But I tend to obsess a bit and get anxious about finding the lay of the land.I really wanted to try a spin class. Because I have no experience and have not, for that matter, had a bike between my legs once in the past two years, I knew I was going to need reinforcements. I lined up both a coworker and my brother to meet me. Why is it so much easier to do new things when someone you know is there? What is that about? Anyway, it doesn’t matter now because both backed out by the end of the work day and I was thinking I would just go row. And then I thought, “You chicken shit. They aren’t going to help you pedal. Be bold and go in the direction of your dreams already!” Not that spinning is my dream, being skinnier and badass is, but I’m getting side tracked …So, I went. Right away people were moving bikes around and panic set in. In these situations, I tend to smile an obnoxiously large, twitchy smile and scan the room for the nicest face. I locked eyes with an older gentleman.“So, I have no clue what to do. Do I just grab any bike?”

“This is like my third class. But I think you want one of the red ones with the RPM reader,” he said.

Oh man … here we go … I don’t know what an RPM reader is and I have no clue how to move this bike. Newness makes me itchy.The instructor helped me adjust my seat height, handlebars and whatever the word is for how far forward your seat sits … fore-something (not skin or play). And then I clicked my toes into the little cages and it was time to start spinning. About 3 (yes, just 3) minutes in I was feeling good, and then she announced it was time to “come out of the saddle” and jog. Now, dear friends, first of all, I used to ride horses and that strip of pleather is not a saddle. No sir. It was at this point I realized two things: 1) I hadn’t been in my target heart rate zone in 18 months, and 2) this was going to kick my ass.

Thoughts that ran through my mind during CycleFit:

Are there special shoes for this, too? What a conspiracy.

There is no way she turned her dial to the right.

I need to stand up, I need to stand up, I need to stand up.

Is the bike moving? Oh my gosh, if this thing tips I am canceling my membership, effective immediately.

I have to sit down, I have to sit down, I have to sit down

If she says, “Here comes the hill,” one more time …

Is that sweat or is my crotch crying?

Can a person’s ass just break in two, right down the middle? I think it’s
happening.

In the end, I survived. And I will go back for sure … after my undercarriage heals, of course.