Reality Check

I just returned from working out at the gym. I had to take four days off due to teaching and then training a new person to help with our daughter. I am unable to leave her alone at this point but I think by next week, I will be able to zip out for an hour's work out.

I am grateful for having started this blog. I am  not really certain who reads it....perhaps just my sisters, my mom and a few friends. I know that had I not taken the leap and made myself accountable, I would be far less motivated. I suppose that being committed to something and writing about it serves a purpose. I really want the end result to be awesome and I want to be really pleased with my achievements.

I am not feeling pressured at all with this project as I might have been in my 20's and maybe even my early 30's. I was constantly bashing myself back then....never thin enough, never tall enough, never good enough. Ironically, I would love to even remotely resemble my physique from my early 20's! I have come to realize that likely isn't going to happen. I have also accepted that I will likely not look a whole lot like the 1940's Pin Up Girl. None of them were 5'1" in height and certainly none of them wrestled with a 35-pound child with cerebral palsy every single day. I also suspect that most had not gone through their childbearing years yet, many smoked and perhaps lived on martinis and cocktails and little food.

I was looking at my arms  the other day and I wondered how I was going to pull off creating slender, delicate arms by my 40th birthday. Seconds later, a little wise voice inside of me whispered, "You're not." Thanks, Wise Voice, always so blunt and to the point. And, as well, there is a good chance my legs aren't going to grow by several inches and I suspect they will never be slender and delicate. Not in this lifetime anyway.

But you know what? That's okay. I may not come out at the end of this looking exactly like a Pin Up Girl but I will still be a Pin Up............but maybe more of a Pin Up Woman. As I visit the gym more and more, I can feel how my endurance is increasing. I am seeing changes in my shape and I am attempting more challenging exercises (like squatting on a bosu ball while throwing a kettle weight above my head) and each time I do it, I get a little bit better, a little bit stronger. As I gear up for 40, I look forward to the woman I am becoming. 

"Phenomenal Woman"

 By Maya Angelou

 

"Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me."

 

Strong Arms~ Photo by Erin Egan