Category: Personal Growth (or not)

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I Work Out Personal Growth (or not)

The Pains in My Ass :)

It was sit up time. I can’t tell you how many months it’s been since I’ve done sit ups. Karen, the wise and kind, asked me if I wanted a mat for under my back. I declined.  And, that was my first mistake.

I sat up aggressively over and over. And consequently lost skin on my butt. It’s a thing that’s pretty normal, but that typically doesn’t become anyone’s business but your own.

My next fun mistake this week was to believe that I could do a workout with cleans at 115 pounds. Many folks can, but I am apparently not one of them.

Cleans are taking a barbell from the ground to up in front of your shoulders. It’s a lift that’s poetry in motion when done correctly. When I did it at that weight, it was more like a ransom note written by a 1st grader. I caught it ugly more than once. I ended up with a lovely green bruise on my chest, and a sucker punch of a pain in my left hip. Fine. My error for lifting with shit form, I’ll work around it, and it’ll be okay.

Three days later, I was doing deadlifts. The weight was not terribly heavy, 165 pounds. Things were going “old lady lifting” smooth until they really really weren’t. I was pulling the bar up, and the universe was like “naw bitch, sit down.” There was a pop in my hip. I crumbled, cussed, rolled out, and pared the weight WAY back so I could finish the workout.

But I was fine. I went outside later and tried some banded muscle ups. I was okay. I sat for 3 hours on a webinar training, and was fine-ish. Nauseous, and couldn’t get comfortable, but fine.

Then I did the craziest athletic thing yet for the week, I was (wait for it…) unloading my dishwasher. I bent over on my right leg. There was a sharp sensation, tingling, and the next thing I know, I was laying on the ground. I spent several minutes trying to get up, but I could not. This, and the pain, made me cry. I had a moment to inspect the underside of the cabinet and realized it needs to be re-finished. I made a mental note to get on that.

Finally, I realized I needed to call to my dear hearing-impaired husband who was watching TV on the other side of the kitchen. He’d heard nothing of my dramatic fall. I called. No answer. I tried to get up for a while more. I called again. I imagine that he had a moment of “did I just hear something?” before he came to the kitchen. His face told me he was worried, and I felt really bad for that.

While I thought that I’d be fine once I got off the ground, he made it clear that going to the ER was not a choice. He was taking me regardless of my protests.

The ER is weird right now, much like the rest of the world. He was not allowed in. I was left to myself, trying desperately to avoid COVID so people can’t have their satisfaction that I got it after going to the rodeo. But I was in so much fucking pain that I was touching everything as I writhed and wept.

Triage decided it was a sprain of my sacroiliac joint. The PA said it’s sometimes called the “sac” joint and I giggled because my sense of humor is that of a 14 year old boy (Deez nutz!). It should heal on its own without any major intervention. The plan was to address my pain. They were going to inject a muscle relaxer and an anti-inflammatory IN MY ASS THAT’S MISSING SKIN. Cool.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years forming opinions about med seekers. I think the universe may have given me this awesome experience to help me expand my empathy on the subject. The nice nurse was understanding about my chapped butt and gave me the injections. I was “chilling” in the room for about an hour. I googled things such as “how long does it take for an IM muscle relaxer to make the pain stop” because I was still in a lot of pain. I looked like an alligator whose just taken prey as a I twisted and turned just trying to find a comfortable spot.

The guy came back and asked how I was doing. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I’m still hurting. I was expecting the shots to stop it.” I started to cry when he said that he was going to get morphine. “Have you ever had morphine before?” “Uh, I think so after I had a cesarean.” That shot stung like a mo-fo. I told him that there’s a bunch of calves that would have loved to see me stung by a shot. And then I told him the importance of seeing the rock walls out Ash Creek road. And then I felt better for several hours.

More humbling lessons came from the universe the next day when I went to fill my prescription for 12 pain pills and 15 muscle relaxers. The pharmacy clerk asked if I’d filled prescriptions there before. I thought I had, but I guess not. Apparently , this is a trigger for folks when getting pain medication. Another way she could have assessed the situation is that “maybe this chick doesn’t get medication often,” but naw. Maybe I was suspicious. After all, I have taken opiates in the past. In 1999. When I had a baby cut out of me!

 The lecture and judgment was unwarranted. And it got in my head. Am I med seeking? There’s no cool outcome to explain my pain. Like, I’m not having a baby or needing surgery. I’m thankful for the wisdom shared with me that it’s okay to take pain medication when there’s pain. Then I got angry at big pharma for creating circumstances where people feel like they have to question if someone really is having pain.

This week has been bursting with things that have been pains in my ass. Hopefully I’ll have learned some valuable lessons from this all and can put it all behind (oh!!!!) me.

If you hung in there, thanks for reading. 🙂

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Personal Growth (or not)

Acid Wash Wranglers of Invincibility

It was a warm summer night in maybe 1988 (pronounced “nineteen hundred and eighty-eight”). I was probably 17. It was a great night for adventure. I had a boyfriend. He was a good kid. He had a knack for collecting some vehicles in various states of capacity for safe operation. This is same young man who had the Camaro that dropped it’s rear window on I5. Just dropped it. No warning that it was going to happen. Just a sudden increase in cabin air flow.

The vehicle of the night of this story though was a 1955 Chevy pickup. The root beer brown of the parts that still had paint were a nice contrast to the spray painted white roll bar

. It was four wheel drive. It sported those classic white steel wheels with the red and blue thin lines. The tires had more like an essence of tread. He was particularly pleased with the fact that it was a wraparound window. The back window stayed intact in this rig, but it had lots of other quirks. I’d forgotten until this VERY moment, it was started by inserting a faded wooden handled steak knife in the ignition. It was also questionable as to when doors would close fully.

And that is how I almost died. (dramatization)

Yea, so beautiful summer night. No better plan than to drive and enjoy the air. We’d stopped at Scooters on 99 in Red Bluff. I don’t remember how much petrol we sprung for, but I do remember sometimes in these days giving a gas station clerk $2, and knowing that it would equate to a measurable amount of driving fun. (Fuck, I’m old!)

I’d exited the truck on the passenger side. Befitting, since I was the passenger. I probably was in need of a nestle white chocolate candy bar. I ate SOOOO many of those as a kid. After we got back to the truck, I got in via the driver’s side. This was bad. This prevented me from making sure the quirky door that I’d exited from was properly closed.

Driving straight down 99 was not a problem. But then,…we were going to turn left on Cone Grove Road. The boy said “hang on.” So I did. Windows were down. I put my hand out the window, and firmly grasped the passenger door.

I then learned about centrifugal force. As the truck turned, the passenger door swung open taking me with it. I hit the asphalt and rolled through the middle of a highway on a busy Saturday night. There had been an 18 wheeler behind us on the road. I’m very thankful to have not been hit by it or any of the other vehicles.

Obviously, the boy was scared. His truck rolled to a stop in a move of finest irony. The push bumper stopped against a sign that remains there to this day “Please don’t litter Tehama County.”

Once I realized I was alive, all I could do was shake and laugh.

I’d rolled onto a highway at probably 40 mph, avoided being splattered by traffic, and had only scratches and bruises to show for it. I mean, there wasn’t even any ripping in my black acid wash wranglers. (I so wish I was kidding about my “fashion” choice)

And it’s THIS kinda shit that makes teens think they are invincible.

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I Work Out Personal Growth (or not)

What’s Wrong With Being Confident?

It’s shortly after 6am on a Tuesday. I’ve got to be to work in a lil bit, but here I sit in my kitchen with hair dye on. I got drastic haircut last night and I can’t un-see that my dyed dark parts are in need of touch up. So there I go. Dying my hair before work. The unworthy pop song pops in my head “What’s wrong with being confident?” This. This and many other things are what’s wrong with being confident.

Normal people wouldn’t seize the moment between Crossfit and work to dye their hair. But, unnaturally self assured people will. Sure there’s benefits to self assuredness, but I’m a living example of some of the pitfalls to it as well.

“Yea. I bet I can do that.” This is the thought that pops in my head often before a number of questionable activities. This thought is regularly followed by reality checks that should curb my behavior. One time I thought I could scale a 6 foot fence with ease. There was no ease about it. It was ug-ly. Reasonable folk would be like, “Hmmm. I guess that’s not in my wheelhouse. Guess that’s okay because I have no need to scale fences.” Folks like me are more like, “I want to climb a fence again.” Why? There’s zero rationale for that thought.

I also get some reminders of my sharky presentation in a number of ways. Important person was at a meeting. I’d asked her if we’d met. She said that we had at a meeting that I’d ran about such and such. We’ve all got way too many meetings to track each one, but I tend to remember the ones that I’m in charge of. My take away from this conversation…Fuck. I probably was acting like I was in charge of the meeting even though I wasn’t. Again.

Confidence builds on itself. When little Billy is tasked with something and he successfully accomplishes that task, he will be more willing to do it again. He will get better; and when he gets better, he’ll get more chances to keep practicing. He gets reinforced with the “I might be good at this” messaging.

Meanwhile little not Billy who doesn’t do the thing also gets his ideas that he’s no good at the thing reinforced. It makes me think of that old expression, “It takes money to make money” in that if you have some confidence you’ll get some more confidence just by feeling more comfortable putting yourself out there.

Challenge yourself to try new things. It should suck when it’s new. There’s no growth without suck. Challenge others to stretch their wings too. This is not a dress rehearsal, so we gotta get all we can out of this run. Live with no ragrets, not even one letter. If there’s messaging in your head telling you that it’s not okay to admit that you can be good at something, squish that voice. It’s being a bitch. If you’re worried that you’ll have an unhealthy amount of unchecked confidence, take that off the table too. The universe has a great way of keeping your shit in check.

I was right. I could dye my hair in the time I had. It turned out well. Then the next day I thought, “Chemical peel, I bet I can do that” and my face melted off. As if the universe plainly stated, “Bitch. Be humble.” Got it. Thanks universe. Message received.

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Blogolicious Personal Growth (or not)

Don’t Pick at It

“I want to be a pretty girl.”

This is one of the things I say too often that is funny, but also dead ass serious, but wrapped up again with funny so that it doesn’t seem too serious. For me, that mostly means that I want to look put together and like I take care of myself. Hilariously true statement, when I was younger I just thought that women became glamorous when they hit 25. Surely it would magically happen for me. Well,…it did not. And so began the makeup years.

I made myself orange with effort trying to look attractive. Evidence of my labors were like self esteem clues. Foundation residue on my phone (so gross!). A drawer full of eye shadows that were never quite as awesome as I’d hope they were going to be. Too many lipsticks that were barely used because they weren’t quite right.

I remember very distinctly being at a meeting at the bank and seeing all the down turned mouths of the old guard. I thought that they must all be mad, disgruntled. etc. I vowed that would never be me. I’m sorry to them for misjudging. Motherfuckin’ time makes your mouth turn down regardless of how you feel about the new sales quotas.

Then one day as I sat in another meeting, in another setting a very different thought occurred to me No, it was not “boy, I should really start paying attention in my meetings.” It was, “why do the men at this meeting just have their red spots on their skin without feeling some need to cover it up?” And so I stopped most the makeup. If Dave and Larry can get through their day without foundation, by golly, so can I. I’m not sure if this was a moment of maturity and acceptance, or a moment of giving up.

I feel like I still tried to clean up. I comb my hair on many days. I put some dead dinosaur product on my eyelashes. I still want to be pretty. I don’t know why. If there’s a point in emotional maturation where a person no longer has that desire, I’ve not yet hit it. I don’t need attention, but I also don’t want to disappear. If that makes sense.

So with that hope in mind, earlier this week I called the dermatologist and lucked out in getting a same day appointment for a mild chemical peel. Never had one before, but the process seemed simple: brush shit on, wipe it off, go back to work, wait for miracle of skin regeneration.

And then, the universe rich in irony decided to teach me a lesson on vanity. Hard. “Oh. You’re after a change in your skin? I got you.”

The peel “went more aggressive than anticipated” for reasons unknown by the incredibly apologetic team at the place. I look like a cross between a chipmunk and a sugar crisp cereal puff. I’m swollen and scabby. There’s enough fluid in my face that it jiggles when I walk. For real. I can’t smile nor see over my swollen cheeks. My face is jacked up. The doctor assured me it will be okay. But in the meantime, I get to proudly wear the badges of “I’m vain” and “I want to be pretty girl.” Got it universe. Message received.

I considered moving out of the country until my skin recovered, but naw. It would be an injustice not to capitalize on a conversation starter of this magnitude, right?

The purpose of this entry is not to compliment fish. I will fake punch you in the throat if anyone starts that. The purpose is that now that my insecurities have been forced in to the open, maybe it can open a dialogue about all of ours. It’s okay to want to look nice. It’s okay to make efforts to do that. It’s also okay when those efforts fail horribly. It’s called taking your lumps and it’s nature’s way of keeping self-importance in check. I will embrace it, and hope that embarrassment brings a lovely hue to my cheeks.