It's Time

I woke up this morning having slept wrong (?) on my neck or something and have some sort of pinched nerve pain making it impossible for me turn my head.

I know, I know…..”Really Melissa, THIS MORNING? Aren’t you supposed to be planning this 30 days of writing further ahead than this? What if you had woken up just fine?”

BUT FOCUS PLEASE.

I am not what you would refer to as a fit person. Hence the blog title, in more ways than one. But through the years I have regularly decided it is “time” to do something about that. I can distinctly remember being 36 and figuring I needed to become a runner (God only knows why) and then being 40 and deciding that I really needed to become a runner (again)! And then, somewhere in my 40’s The Hubs and I joined a gym and purchased personal training session because IT WAS TIME. I’m 50 now. I am still 25 pounds overweight and I don’t run. Or lift weights.

The fact of the matter is, I hate exercising.

I always think I am going to like it when I am making plans, but the minute it comes time to follow through on those plans I would rather do anything else. Anything.

I figured that if I just went to the gym often enough, for long enough, I would eventually become one of those people who love their workouts and cannot go without them. I went 2 or 3 times a week for two years…… and I still hated it. It just seems like a chore, and an unpleasant one at that.

Up until this point in my life, none of this has mattered too much. I mean, I don’t like being overweight, but clearly it doesn’t bother me enough to do anything about it. I have low blood pressure, good cholesterol and a pulse so low a nurse once asked me if I ran marathons (LOL).

But that’s not going to last…….

My Mom has high BP, my Dad has his first heart attack at 57. My grandma had type 2 diabetes and my Dad is on metformin, and he was always fit and never overweight!  Something is coming for me and it’s not going to be about getting a nice beach body. That ship has sailed. No one cares what you beach body looks like when you are 50+. And I keep telling myself this. So for the last 2 years I have insisted I am going to at least go hiking. I have a freaking mountain trail at the end of my street!

The mountain preserve by my house-because pictures are pretty.

And for 2 years I didn’t do it because I was tired, it was hot, I was busy, blah, blah, blah.

So I decided to ask my neighbor, who is always up at 5am (WHY????) and now I have a commitment that I have to live up to. I cannot skip it because she is waiting on my porch.  Of course, this does nothing about my weight. Did I mention that I joined weight watchers 19 months ago? Lost 17 pounds, stopped trying too hard, gained 7 back and I have been paying monthly for a year because any day now I am going to get serious again. Or not.

Now, none of this would have changed my kinked neck this morning…but before long its going to be knees and hips and my back too. I keep telling myself its never too late, but eventually I’ll have some sort of medical condition and it will be too late.

It’s time and I need to do something.

30 Days of Hell

I have done something I shouldn’t have. Nothing too terribly bad, but I probably shouldn’t have done it anyway. I joined a 30 day writing challenge. Specifically, I have to write and post something to my blog every day for the month of June. Why? Well, I haven’t posted here in just over a year and I haven’t written much for BLUNTMoms either, so it seemed like a good way to kick myself in the pants and get this show going again.

I have a habit of doing things like this. At the new year, I don’t make A resolution, I make ALL the resolutions. I resolve to spend the year doing every damn thing I was always “going to do” and never got around to. Lose weight, travel the world, read all the books on my nightstand, take vitamins, observe meatless Monday! There is no resolution too small to make my list. Some of them manage to linger all the way to February.

For the last couple of years I have also joined Project 52’s, which are photography projects in which you take a photo each week for the year. This year I joined four, including the one I am in charge of. I have failed at all four. Spectacularly. ONE PHOTO A WEEK. So why do I think I can complete a 30 day writing challenge?

One of my Project 52 photos-and my nightstand reading,

which is far from complete!

Is it because I wrote this ahead of time and had it ready to go before today, putting me off to a good start?

NO

Is it because I have several partially written pieces that I can finish, pushing me along?
ALSO NO

Is it because I have loads of ideas and just need to commit to the time to get them written?

STILL NO

I have exactly 3 “prompts” and I put that in quotation marks because really, they are just vague ideas. And 27 less vague ideas than I actually need to make it through this month.

So stay tuned…..when I run out of ideas and it’s 9pm and I am determined not to fail just yet, God knows what kind of weird and interesting topics I will come up with!

Desperate times call for desperate measures!

We Don't Have To Live Like This

Once, when my youngest daughter was in middle school, I received a call from the school. It was one of those recorded messages from the principal.

 It said there was a lock down and they were ordering the kids to shelter in place.

 I was in the middle of Target trying to process what I was hearing.

It was 15 seconds into the message before they got to the part where they mentioned there was a spring swarm of bees in the courtyard and this was just a precaution so no one got stung by them.

 15 seconds of my brain trying to grasp what might be happening.

Friday was this same daughter’s final day of high school. A bittersweet moment full of change and promise in a person’s life.

 While I waited for her to come home from school, I watched my computer screen fill with images of students and parents in Santa Fe, Texas.

A Facebook “friend” posted a photo. It was from someone who was, to her, a “friend of a friend.” That’s how Facebook works.

 The woman was looking for her daughter, a Santa Fe student.

The comments were filling with notes about who to call and where the meeting place was.

 She had tried them all.

 Later, we all learned that her beautiful, beloved child was among the dead.

My children’s high school is right down the street.

 On quiet winter mornings, if I am outside at just the right time, I can hear the marching band practice and the morning bells go off.

 Or the fire alarms.

My kids have spent 6 years at this school.

When my son first started there, the school secretary sat right out front in the lobby at her desk. Behind her was a half wall, open to the attendance offices. She would smile at you and point out the table where parents could drop off the forgotten lunch or sports equipment for practice later.

 A couple of years later, walls and locked doors and buzzers appeared. But she was still there, at her desk.

The lone sentinel.

Then that disappeared too.

 More walls, more locks.

Now she sits behind glass, with a little pass through tray, like at the bank.

 I don’t know if the glass is bullet proof.

 I hope so.

We have lived here, in the shadow of this school, for 17 years.

 It has been part of our lives, from the Homecoming parade down the street out front, with students throwing candy to all the neighborhood kids, to the fireworks every year in the fall for football and in the spring for graduation.

So, as my daughter ran in from school to change her shirt and head to work, I am conflicted about my feelings.

 I am excited for her to be finished, I am sad that the time has flown by so quickly…but I am also relieved.

Because while I would love to believe—while my ability to function every day while my kids were at school required me to believe---that it would never happen here…

I am sure that exactly what they thought in Santa Fe, Texas.

And in Parkland, Florida.

And I’m certain it never crossed the minds of those sweet little babies in Newtown, Connecticut.

And yet.

So, I am glad that we are done.

That my children are done.

I feel relief that we made it this far, without incident.

Then I look around at all the little ones in my neighborhood and I am scared all over again. 

For them.

It’s not supposed to be like this.

We don’t have to live like this.

We don’t have to die like this.