Blue Monday

I meant to get a blog done (finally) and have it ready for you before New Years Day.  Then I meant to have it done a few days later.  And then a day after that.  But well, you know, life.  It just happens.  I've had so many topics I have wanted to write bouncing around in my head that I fear they may now be all jumbled together and vomited from my brain in one big pile of wordy crap.  You're welcome in advance.

I'm actually glad I haven't had time to write until just this moment.  This morning as a sipped my coffee, used my five pointless Candy Crush lives and watched the Today show I learned that it was the most depressing day of the year.  Wow.  Why wasn't I told? Blue Monday they call it.  It's supposed to be the third Monday of January but some asshole somewhere must have got the wrong memo and bumped it up a couple of weeks.  I wasn't even prepared.

Well, that's not true.  Where I live our entire state was enduring a freak out of epic proportions I like to call Coldpocalypse 2014.  With windchills at -40 degrees and colder all the schools were shut down by the governor.  You know this was supposed to be the first day back after a two week winter break, right?  I'm done with togetherness and, frankly, so are my boys.  By 10:00am I was threatening these two adolescents with the punishment of organizing my underwear drawer if they didn't get their shit together and stop beating on each other or screaming.  Today was an Ice Blue Monday.

Why the depression in January?  I think there are a lot of reasons for it.  Long, cold days.  Seasonal depression. The relative slowness and inactivity after the craziness of the holidays.  The lack of something to look forward to.  But I think there is more to it than that.

Let's go back to Christmas Day.  I spent the entire day with my family relaxing, opening presents and enjoying our time together (until it was time for me to make dinner and then it was panic time since every year I forget I do not own double ovens).  It was a wonderful day. And much like last year I woke up the next morning in a bit of a funk.  I was feeling like a sorely needed fruits and vegetables and I was exhausted from the last minute play calls I had to make to even pull off the holiday at all.  But thanks to the daily body gratitude challenge I was participating in on my blog's Facebook page I was able to combat those feelings that I normally have about my body, post-holiday, pretty easily.  Unfortunately, my Facebook friends didn't fare so well. 

On Christmas I saw post after post of well wishes, glad tidings, happiness, family togetherness, great food and celebrations and just overall - JOY.  That all changed the very next day.

Every post I saw was along these lines:

"I need to get back on track."

"God, I'm so fat today."

"I can't believe I ate so much."

"The diet starts now."

"Nothing fits today."

"I feel disgusting."

It made me so sad.  The shift from joy to self-loathing was almost tangible.  I've been working so hard on keeping those kinds of thoughts at bay for myself and there they all were in the form of statuses from all my beautiful friends.

And this is the frame of mind that people are in when they make New Year Resolutions?  This is the feeling they are to be inspired to make change from?  I've already tried to explain why real lasting change will NEVER come from a place of non-acceptance.  I promise you - it won't work.  This is why I started the Body Gratitude Challenge in the first place.  It's normal to want a fresh start each year and to have new goals but I truly believe there is merit to entering the new year with love, gratitude and acceptance as your backbone before you initiate change.

Blue Monday 2014 happens to be the first Monday after New Year's Day.  This is the day that many start their resolutions, often fueled by this aforementioned self-loathing.  They're creating lists of all their "can't haves" and "must dos". Or worse, they are already a few days into their resolution and have already decided they have failed.  Depressing, indeed.

I wish only one thing for you in the new year.  If you must make changes in your lifestyle do so not to make yourself less but because you deserve so much more.  You deserve to be healthy.  You deserve to feel strong.  You deserve to make time for yourself.  You deserve to love yourself.

I made a couple of resolutions that have nothing to do with my weight or fitness level and everything to do with how I feel about my body.  While I have a lot of things I want to do and experience and achieve I wanted to name a couple of very quantifiable things that I could work on.  First, I'm going to continue on my path of taking back the power from the camera.  I feel very comfortable at this point with having my picture taken by a professional but it's the "selfies" and candid photos that scare me and have made me absent from my family's memories.  So, I have vowed to take more photos of myself and even post them "out there" in the interwebs.  In fact, I've committed to taking 30 days of selfies and even posting some of them in an effort to make the camera old hat.  I have some Facebook friends who have agreed to join me in this experiment and together I am hoping we can take some of the emotion out of photo avoidance and perfectionism so we can be more present.

I think selfies, as irritating and ridiculous as they can be, resonate with people. I decided to throw caution to the wind and start fulfilling my goal by posting a pic of me, post-workout, no make-up and tons of swass, right on my Facebook page in a post about sustainability.  Imagine my shock when it became the most viewed thing I've ever put on my page. By A LOT.  People want to see real pictures.  They want to see things they can relate to.  After I recovered from my vulnerability overdose I felt a change.  A shift in where I want to go with this blog.  I've struggled recently with my intentions and direction but I've got it now.  All because I posted a picture of myself in my sweaty clothes.

Did you know that the Word of the Year in 2013 was "selfie"?  It's true.  Because, regardless of what you say, you know you love them.  (Or you are lacking in photo buddies to hold the camera.)  Every one needs to selfie once in awhile.

(source)

A friend of mine suggested that rather than coming up with a New Year's Resolution she was going to pick a word or theme for the year.  I have my theme already.

Sustainability

It's not fancy.  It's not bedazzled.  It's not full of "lose 10 pounds in 5 days" or "blast that belly" promises.  Sustainability is real.  It's relatable.  It's bare faced and full of swass.  Sustainability is where it's at.  It's the word for 2014.  I promise.

I know we are already knee deep in resolutions and I wish I could write everything I'm thinking tonight but I can't so I'm going to divide it up.  I'm going to address the topic of sustainable change in relation to self-worth and body confidence over the next few blogs so you can see what I'm working on and what I'm hoping to achieve.  If it helps you, wonderful!  If not, maybe you'll get some duck lips out of the deal.

For now, I want to wish you a very Happy New Year and I'd like to post an oldie but a goodie.  Whatever changes you want to make in 2014 or whatever goals you hope to achieve, make sure they are in line with this Body Pledge I hope you'll take with me.

Word to Your Mother

It seems I'm destined to have all the biggest, life changing events in my life happen around a holiday.  I lost my first pregnancy on St. Patrick's Day back in 2000.  Over Christmas that same year I had my first son, Ethan.  And a year and a half later I spent Mother's Day weekend in the hospital recovering from my my youngest son's birth.  Eleven years later and I am still splitting that weekend with my son.

This week has been a bear.  I've been behind on work, getting slammed with "to-do" lists and trying to get everything done in time for Sean's birthday.  I ran errands, I bought and wrapped all the presents and I even made him a special Minecraft birthday cake that literally took me all day and then some.  Coincidentally he also picked this week to become the biggest almost-eleven year old turd you've ever seen.  I'm pretty sure I threatened to cancel his birthday at least three times.  Of course I didn't cancel it.  He's my baby and I would do anything for either of my boys (except make a Minecraft cake ever again).  But I'll be damned if I can't wait till they figure out the wisdom in behaving before an upcoming birthday.  Or Christmas.  Or Mother's Day.

Of course you know that I was an angel as a child, right?  That I was so well behaved as to never stress my mother out?  That I brought only joy and laughter and fulfillment to her life?  Yeah, not so much.  I'm assuming that what I am experiencing with my own children can only be the ultimate act of motherly revenge:  Childhood Karma.  But at least I was cute, right?  How could you not love me?

When I was a toddler I was the first to invent the "trust fall".  And by trust fall I mean falling stiff as a board on to my face every time I was told no.  Every time.  My mom would just ignore my tantrum and step right over me and go about her business.  I guess maybe she got concerned the time I finally lifted my head to look up at her and she saw blood streaming down my face from my nose.  I know I'd be concerned - blood is incredibly hard to get out of the carpet!

As I got a little older she developed to new tactic every time I got angry with her or didn't get my way.  She'd calmly look at me and begin to sing with her sweet, soothing voice.  It's a song that, as an adult, I logically realize is one of Joe Cocker's best songs displaying such beautiful intimacy.  But still to this day every time I hear You Are So Beautiful I have an immediate visceral and negative reaction akin to shock therapy.  I can't listen to it.  I just can't.

If you recall from a previous post about my childhood vulnerabilities my mother is quite young.  She still jokes that she and I will eventually be the same age.  It won't really matter when I'm 75 and she's 91 as long as we have someone to wipe our asses, right?  Since she was so young and I was born before the age of "political correctness" she maybe hasn't always said the most motherly things.  I still laugh every time I think of her trying to correct my speech impediment, though.  She swears that it never happened but I'm quite certain my five year old self did NOT make this up.  It was the Summer before I was to start kindergarten and I couldn't say my R's.  She tried to help me.  "Say rrrrrrrrabbit."  "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrWabbit."  "Say Rrrrrrrrrrrobert." "RrrrrrrrrrWobert."  This went on and on till one day, as I stood next to her in the laundry room watching her pull clothes out of the dryer and I tried to say my R's she told me if I didn't figure out how to say them correctly before kindergarten started I would have to ride the short bus to school.  I had it figured out in a week.

Since she was so young we were often more like friends than mother/daughter.  At least in my eyes. Until I hit my teenage years of course.  She was trying to lay down the law with me one day and I wasn't having any of it.  I was a pretty good kid that got my way most of the time because I didn't cause any trouble (other than with my mouth) but I must have done something to trigger her parental side that day.  When she was done talking I held up my chin, looked her straight in the eye and said, "Why are you trying to be a mom now after all these years?"  Honestly, I knew the second those words left my mouth that I wanted them back.  If only I could grab them and shove them back in.  The look on her face confirmed this, of course, but I kept my pride, tossed my hair and turned to walk away from her.  That was my mistake.  If ever you should think of saying something like that to your mother don't turn your back, whatever you do.  Back away slowly and calmly, never forgetting your mother's ninja moves.  She hauled up her foot and kicked me right in the ass, Chuck Norris style, as I walked away.  God, I deserved it.

I tried unsuccessfully for years to get her to pay me for good grades. "Why should I pay you for something you care more about than me?"   When I wanted to get my ears double pierced she said, "Absolutely not!" (And then she went and got a tattoo years and years later.)  As a single mom she worked hard all day just to come home to me where I would inevitably tell her how bored I was and that she should take me somewhere.  I got this: "I'm not your cruise director."  I'm still a little upset that I'm unable to use this one on my own Love Boat-deprived children.  I can, however, use this oldie but goody as much as I like for my own amusement.

I have forgiven her for the first mullet I ever got.  And for making me do my impersonations of Miss Piggy's karate chop or Clyde, the orangutan from Every Which Way But Loose, for her friends.  And for those vacation pictures taken of me in said mullet, a striped tube top and white culottes.

My mother is one of the smartest, funniest women I know.  She's rarely, if ever, wrong. She's my hero for raising me on her own and with her sanity mostly intact, even.  She's also one of my best friends.  I still do everything she tells me to, whether it's a career choice or a book club selection.  If she told me to do it must be right.

As I think about my own children on this Mother's Day weekend I realize they aren't perfect.  But they are mine and they are beautiful.  They are smart and strong, full of humor and sass and energy.  I would do anything for them in the world, including give my own life, because they are worthy of being here just as they are.  I love them with my whole entire being, even on those days that I struggle with liking them a whole lot.  And knowing how I feel about them gives me a glimpse of how I'm sure my mother feels about me.  Of how all mothers feel about their children.

So on this Mother's Day, as you think about how much your mother and your children are worthy of your love, perhaps realize that you need that same amount of love from yourself.  Remember how worthy YOU are, despite whatever imperfections you may have. After all, your mother is never wrong.

 I love you, mom.