Behaving Badly & Coming Clean

I'm not happy with myself right now. The best way to describe my behavior in the last two weeks is destructive. How else would you categorize repeatedly doing something you know is bad for you, that you know will make you feel terrible? To do it once is foolish, but forgivable. To continue is asinine and simply destructive.

Yes, I'm talking about poor food choices. But lately it's been much more than a bad choice here and there. I've been verging on an all out bender of bad choices and I feel miserable and I'm starting to get to that place where I don't even care, which is a horrible place to be staring down. I promised myself that I was never going back to that place, ever.

The best that I can do at this point is be totally honest about it and keep trying to do better and try to find my give-a-damn again. I'm honestly a little perplexed about why this happened. I know that it's the holidays and that they're rough for a lot of people, but I don't really think it's a valid excuse. Maybe it's the winter blues coming on and knowing that it'll be a while before I'll get to go home again? I know I've been feeling lonely and bored and unfulfilled lately and in the past when I've been feeling down I've always turned to food. Old habits die hard, as they say. Unlike the past, though, I'm not finding any comfort in these bad foods, they're just making me feel worse, but I keep making the bad choices. It would almost seem like I want to be miserable - why else would I keep putting myself through this? It's not only the mental side of feeling bad, I physically feel like hell. Even though the scale hasn't changed I feel fat again. Lazy, lethargic, slovenly, sluggish, bloated, tired...fill in the blank with any number of unflattering adjectives and they'll come only slightly close to how I've been feeling.

I know that this is a long journey and it's not always going to be all high moments, sunshine, and rainbows. I realize that the valleys and darkness are inevitable and necessary but I don't like being stuck here and it's getting harder and harder to climb back out. I have trouble reconciling how I can be so strong one minute and so weak the next. I can make hundreds of good choices, but even one bad one seems to completely reset the counter to zero and the further I get away from zero the more crushing it is to watch the numbers flip backward.

I could blame many things on this struggle. Blame is easy to place, except when you know it should be on your shoulders. I could say that I'm struggling because there has been a complete breakdown of any semblance of a support system, but that gives away all my control. It suggests that I was only successful because of other people. My support system was definitely a driving force for me in the beginning and it absolutely made it easier to keep pushing forward, but the choices were all still mine. No one else could work out for me and no one else could eat for me. It just made it more rewarding to have people to cheer you on. I recently even experienced my first negative reactions to my success from people that I love and who I know support me. I know they didn't mean to, but their remarks hurt me just the same. It was the first time that I felt bad for changing, like I'd upset the balance and like I shouldn't be so proud. I'm angry that I let them make me feel that way. And how did I respond? Not by forging ahead, but by making decisions that lead me backward.

I know that I'm smarter than the way I've been behaving. I've proven that I have the knowledge and the tools to succeed. I will not go backward. I can't. I've worked too hard. This self-sabotaging behavior is stupid and inexcusable and I need to stop acting this way.

The new year starts next week, and though I had hoped to be 100 pounds lighter by Monday night, I'm not upset that I won't meet that goal because I knew it was ambitious when I set it. I don't plan on making resolutions either. I've done that for years and never stuck with them. Tuesday is just another day, a day that is nothing more than a flip of the calendar page. There's nothing any more significant about that Tuesday than the one that just passed. Why should I wait for an arbitrary Tuesday to be THE day that I start living well again? Why not tomorrow? Why not the next minute? Every minute I let pass just gives me more rope to hang myself with, metaphorically speaking. If I say that I'll start doing better on Tuesday, that gives me the rest of the weekend to make bad choices. If I decide that my next choice will be a better one than the last one I made, there's much less time for me to screw up.

I've been destructive lately, but laying it all out in the open is the first CONstructive step toward change, which I'm all about. Now I can go forward with a clean conscience and start cleaning up the rest of my life, again.

Chapter Three

This week marks my eight month CrossFit anniversary. Other than jobs (which typically have a two year limit before I get bored with them) this has been pretty much the longest period of time I've spent consistently doing one thing. It's felt good to have this focus in my life and the results have definitely been worthwhile. It's been eight months well spent.



My first CrossFit Competition - BHC Garage Games

I think of the past eight months in two chapters. Chapter One took place when I lived in SW Virginia and trained at Brickhouse - from the end of April (when I started CrossFit) until the end of August. This period of time was spent falling in love with and learning the fundamentals of CrossFit. I got a great nutritional foundation and gained an acute awareness of how food affected the way I felt and performed. Getting a handle on nutrition and finding an exercise program that I enjoyed and that allowed me to see results finally made me feel successful. I was able to get my HA1C levels under control by changing the way I ate and increasing my exercise. In all the years that I have been overweight I had always felt like I was never in control. That my weight dictated the way I lived my life. There had always been things I couldn't
 do, or ways I had to do things, because I was overweight. In those first four months I got a glimpse of hope that my life wouldn't have to be that way anymore.

In Chapter Two - the last four months (September to December) - I have been living in DC and training at District CrossFit. This period of time, in every way, has been dedicated to transition and adjustment. With everything being different in my life, having CrossFit as a constant was essential. Even though I had to adjust to a new box, new coaches, new movements, I still had an ultimate goal I was working toward and the foundation and tools were the same. It would have been very easy for me to have given up when faced with all these changes. Moving was extremely stressful and I felt my control slipping away many times. My progress in the past four months hasn't been as dramatic (in my mind) as it was at the beginning, but sitting here at the end of my eighth month I can see that my progress has continued steadily and I am still seeing results. I have even been able to stop taking all of the medication that I previously had to take to control my diabetes.

One major milestone from this chapter came last weekend when I competed in my first Olympic Lifting competition. One of my coaches commented that putting yourself out there in competition isn't easy. I hadn't really thought of entering the competition in that way. I was nervous about competing, but before I started CrossFit I would never have been able to stand alone on the platform in front of three judges and a room full of strangers and do much of anything. I didn't really give that part of it a second thought. I was more worried I'd fail on all my lifts than I was about what people would think of me. Even though I didn't come close to winning, I did go for a personal record on both of my lifts and actually got a PR on my snatch. I had fun and learned so much in the preparation and in the competition itself. This is definitely something that I want to continue pursuing in the coming year.

Capital Affiliate League Olympic Lifting Open
Snatch Attempt 3 - 92 lbs



Capital Affiliate League Olympic Lifting Open
Clean & Jerk Attempt 2 - 115 lbs

My Current Motivation

I have set many goals for myself throughout the course of the last eight months and most of them have been related to weight loss as I have felt that was the most important aspect to focus on. My first goal was to be under 300 pounds by my 30th birthday - a goal I missed by a few weeks but ultimately hit. My second goal was to lose 100 pounds total by New Year's Eve. With about a week to go and 20 more pounds to lose, it seems likely that I will miss this goal as well. I have been surprised that I have taken both of these misses in stride and not let them derail my efforts. I think ultimately that it's not as important to hit my targets on the arbitrary schedule that I set as it is to have them to shoot for. I am realizing that trying the reach a goal is the most important thing. Missing my goals has taught me that as long as I keep trying, the weight loss will happen eventually. In my workouts I set goals to lift more, do more reps, or master new skills. I have also been using clothes as motivation, even though replacing my work wardrobe every couple of months is getting pretty costly.

I didn't really plan it this way, but the start of the New Year (basically) coincides with the start of my third chapter. The next four months will complete my first year of this journey and I have many things planned that I'd like to accomplish. I won't be making new resolutions this year, but will instead continue along the path that I've been following. I hope that if I continue in the same manner as I have over the last eight months that I will hit my 100 pound weight loss sometime in late February or early March. I hope to continue working on my Olympic lifts, become a USAW member, and compete again in April. I have also signed up for the Rugged Maniac 5k in early May. I hope to become more independent and more settled into life in DC.

I am looking forward to what the next chapter has in store for me. I'm sure that many more opportunities to challenge myself will come in the next four months and I plan to take advantage of every one that I can. The most rewarding experiences I have had in the last two chapters have come when I have stepped outside of my comfort zone and put my new-found courage to the test. Every day offers the chance to learn and grow if only I am open to the experience.

Bless All the Dear Children

I'm not sure that I'm fully ready to write this post, I haven't really had time to process everything that's happened over the last couple of days, but I'm going to start and see where it takes me, this may be another fairly long one.

I struggled my first two years in college as a music major and when I realized that it wasn't working out and finally dropped my major, I found myself lost and unhappy. I decided to take the summer off after my sophomore year to re-evaluate things and the summer turned into a 3 year hiatus that involved working in several mundane retail and fast food jobs, interrupted by a year long recovery from my car accident. During this time I also worked at a community college bookstore - a position that paid well for someone lacking a college degree - and I really enjoyed my work there and the people that I worked with, but I didn't really see a solid, meaningful future in what I was doing.

After the accident, when I was looking for purpose and meaning in my life, for the reason that I had survived when three other children were taken from their families, my manager pointed out how well I interacted with a co-worker's young daughter and wondered if I had ever considered working with children. My goal as a music major was to be a high school band director and I hadn't really considered teaching elementary school, but her comment made me take a harder look at what I wanted out of life and I began to realize the difference that I could make teaching young children. I decided to leave behind my job at the bookstore (and the salary and benefits that it included) and return to school to finish my degree in Early Childhood Education.

The next 5 years were both rewarding and difficult. I found a great passion for working with children, in particular those with special needs, and for the subject matter and developmental theories, and everything connected with the world of the young child. Through my training to become a teacher I gained confidence speaking in front of groups (which I had previously struggled with to the point that I would freeze and tremble and be unable to speak) and I also discovered talents that I never knew I had. I even learned to love lesson plans. I had some great role models in my professors, cooperating teachers, and fellow students as well as some poor examples and difficult professors/cooperating teachers that also challenged me to find the positive lesson out of a negative situation.

After completing my student teaching my confidence was high, my knowledge was solid, and I was ready to take on the job market, get my own classroom, and start changing the world one young child at a time. What followed was a frustrating two year job search and many, many challenging days working in daycare. I had the misfortune of trying to enter a flooded job market with no experience, no Master's degree, right as the economy was heading into a nose dive. After spending 2 months out of work and going through three surgeries to combat an infection I most likely received from daycare and having been constantly sick with upper respiratory distress, my third interview (out of over 60 positions I had applied for) ended in another "thank you for applying but we've selected another candidate" letter. Faced with mounting medical bills and student loan payments I finally had to make the decision to look for a position outside of my field of study. My confidence was shot and I felt like a failure.

In the 2 years that have followed since I left daycare I have found rewarding work and a great position with the VA. Many other great changes have happened in my life as a result. I have been able to pay my bills and start CrossFit which has helped me get healthy and gain even more confidence in myself. I'm much happier now than I was before. I'm on a career path and I'm living on my own as a responsible adult. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and that every situation leads us in the direction we were meant to go (and if not, something will eventually redirect us). If I had found a teaching job straight out of college, maybe I would have never met all of the great people at the VA or in my CrossFit communities. I haven't completely shut the door on teaching. In the back of my mind and in my heart it's still something that I am truly passionate about. My teaching license will expire in June of this coming year, but that doesn't mean that I will never teach or work with children in some way in the future.

The point of this rather long-winded chapter out of my history book is that the loss of several students from my high school in the past few weeks and the recent shooting in Connecticut have been weighing heavily on my heart. I have been told that my compassion is both a strength and a weakness. It would break my heart to learn about children who had terrible home lives, who lived in poverty and didn't get enough to eat, whose parents didn't care enough to make sure they wore a coat to school, who were abused and neglected by the people who should have loved and protected them the most. I was also known to be brought to tears during a parent teacher conference by a father's frustration and deep concern that his son not be seen as stupid because he struggled with reading. I often worried that I would get too involved in the lives of my students and would want to personally save every troubled child, to protect them from every harsh word and difficult situation thrown their way. I knew realistically to survive I would need to draw the boundary line and respect it, but I never wanted to completely lose my compassion for children as I have seen happen to other teachers.

I didn't know any of the students who have passed recently at my old high school and I can't imagine the difficulties facing the community of Newtown. As removed as I am from the situation I am still devastated by the senselessness of all those young lives lost. I ache for the families dealing with this loss and  I could only hope I would be as brave as the teachers in that school who sacrificed themselves to save and protect the lives of their students if, God forbid, I was ever faced with such a tragedy.

Those who know me best know that I'm not the most religious person, and throughout my adult life I have struggled with my faith, especially at times like this when it should be stronger than ever. I do have faith that there is a greater plan in place, though we may not understand it, and I pray for peace and comfort for everyone involved in this tragedy. Loss is especially difficult during the holidays and has happened so often for so many people I know. This post was inspired by the following lyrics from a familiar Christmas song that seemed a particularly fitting prayer in light of everything that has happened.

"Bless all the dear children
In Thy tender care,
And take us to Heaven
To live with Thee there."

 

The House That Built Me

Brickhouse Garage Games 2012
This is actually right after Amanda told me I couldn't do burpees from the bench anymore - a scary, awesome moment!

This week my friends at home are saying their good-byes to a place that we've all called our second home in recent months and years. Some have been there since day one, others maybe only a week or two, some, like me, have moved to other corners of the world and have new box homes, but I'm sure they've all felt the same magic inside the four brick walls located on 310 Salem Avenue that I did when I was there. At the end of this week Brickhouse CrossFit will be moving into a magnificently humongous and beautiful new space and I couldn't be more excited and proud of Amanda and Jay for making this dream come true for them and all of the Brickhouse athletes.

I had to say my official good-bye after my last WOD at 310 over my Thanksgiving break, but seeing all the progress updates on the new space has made me think back on my time at Brickhouse again. Though the move is going to be amazing and I'm excited to get to visit the new digs too, a part of me is a little sad to know that someone else is going to be occupying our home at 310 from now on. It feels a little like moving out of the house you grew up in, or having your parents move while you were away at college. I've already moved on to my third home at District CrossFit, but Brickhouse will always hold a special place for me because it's where I got my start.

First Month at Brickhouse

Since the first day that I walked through the doors at 310 and Adam took the time to calm my fears and knocked down every excuse I had to not join, my life has been different. I have been different. That is why I think of Brickhouse as the house that I grew up in. Where I grew (or shrunk) into the new me. It's the place I took my first steps toward changing my life. It's where I learned how to be strong, confident, and powerful. Since CrossFit was new to me, almost every day brought a first - first deadlift, first kettle bell swing, first wall ball, first (and likely last) 5:30AM WOD. More than being just the place where I learned the basics, Brickhouse is the place where many of my important milestones happened. My first burpee on the floor, my first RX'd benchmark WOD, first handstand, first box jump. I learned to run again on the corner of Salem Avenue and 3rd Street. I competed in my first CrossFit competition at 310. I've had some of my most triumphant moments there, and also had some nights were I felt completely beaten down. Saturdays were always special to me - getting to train with Amanda and Jay, doing Hero WODs, and getting to meet and work out with people from different classes.

After My Last Saturday WOD at 310 Salem Avenue

I have so many great memories inside those walls and coming back to visit after I moved really felt like coming home. I always feel comfortable and at ease there, like I do in my own home. Whether it was sweltering or freezing inside, it always felt good. Shouts of joy and frustration echo off the walls - especially when it's quiet and nearly empty. When it was full and the music was thumping, the energy was electric and I almost felt like I could tap into that power source and take on the world. As gross as it may sound, the mats are literally imbued with the blood, sweat, and tears of the many of athletes that have called Brickhouse home. If the walls could talk they would tell you stories of great moments everyone saw and tiny victories that may have gone unseen by most. I know that the new building will be just as magical and electric, because it's the people inside that make it that way.

I realize that memories don't live in a building, and buildings don't make a home, but all the same I'm overly sentimental (obviously) and this change is bittersweet. Just like I had to move on to new challenges and new real estate to make new memories and have new firsts, so too is it time for the next chapter for everyone at Brickhouse. Many great days are in store for all of you and I can't wait to see what amazing things you will all do in your new home! I'm dying to visit and check out all the hard work that the coaches and ambassadors have been doing over the last weeks to get 521 Salem Avenue ready. It's definitely an exciting time.

Happiness Is...

If you Google "Happiness Is..." it doesn't take you long to realize that this is one question without a single, definitive answer.

The Peanuts say that Happiness is either a warm puppy, a warm blanket, or being one of the gang.

The Beatles insist Happiness is a Warm Gun - clearly cold things don't make you happy.

Happiness is a choice. Happiness is a journey. Happiness is like a butterfly.

Even the Declaration of Independence talks about happiness and sets forth the idea that we have been endowed by our creator with the unalienable right to pursue happiness. Note, we aren't guaranteed happiness, just the freedom to pursue it. I used to wonder if I would constantly pursue happiness but always be eluded by it. I was unhappy with a lot of things for a long time.

I found happiness this year, in abundance. I was happy with myself and my life and the people I was surrounded by. Happier than I could remember being. I looked forward to every day. I was happy to be alive. I didn't dread work. I was sleeping well.

It's difficult to not correlate happiness with circumstance. All things being equal, if you stand back and look at your life and can clearly see that before this dot on the timeline your circumstance was one way and you weren't happy and after this dot your circumstance was another way and you were happy, how can you not connect the two? All of the factors that shape the circumstance in which you found yourself happy start to become your basis for what happiness is. They become the essentials for happiness. You believe if you don't have them you will no longer be happy. You weren't happy before you had them, so it stands to reason that you won't be happy if you lose them. Your happiness becomes wrapped up in your circumstance.

Any number of things can make someone happy, and everyone has a different litmus test for happiness. Being rich and famous, getting married, having a good job, being healthy, being spiritually sound, having a nice car, realizing your self worth... "If only X,Y,Z were present in my life, then I would be truly happy." You look at others who have your essential happiness ingredients, envious, and wonder why they aren't happy if they have what it takes to make them so? But maybe what would make you happy isn't enough for that other person...maybe not that it's not enough, it's just not the right thing.

Maybe happiness is like baking, or chemistry. It requires just the right formula or mix of ingredients. Any small deviance can throw the whole thing off. So you're out of vanilla extract - won't almond extract work just as well? Not quite. Substituting a similar ingredient for the one you really need might get you a similar product, but it won't be the same. If you're expecting what you're used to, you'll just end up disappointed. I've had chocolate chip cookies made with almond extract...bizarre.

I've realized in the last week or so that I've been trying to bake with almond extract. I've been striving to recreate my happiness with different ingredients to no avail. I'm beginning to think that it's not possible because I've been going about happiness in all the wrong ways. I haven't been very happy lately and I've been thinking that I won't be happy again unless things are the way they were before. Maybe, happiness isn't tied to circumstance, and it's not like baking, and it's not a once-in-a-lifetime thing that can only happen if all the planets are perfectly aligned.

I've been told before that you can be as happy or as miserable as you want to be. If you're dead set that you can't possibly be happy in any given situation, then it will be impossible. Even though I had been warned against it, I have been living in the land of what used to be for the last few months, longing to get my happiness back. Hanging on, white knuckled, with everything I have in me. Trying desperately to eek out every bit of happy I can pull from the other side only to end up feeling unfulfilled and sad. I think it may be time to loosen my grip, which also makes me sad. I don't want to leave everything behind, but  hanging on so tightly makes it difficult to move on and find happiness again. And it scares me.

 I don't want to forget and I don't want to be forgotten, but inevitably life moves on for everyone and it's hard to see it go on without you. It's hard to miss out on things and think, if things were different I would be there too. But I also realize that if I only wish to be somewhere else, I could be missing out on my life here too, and maybe I'm not giving here enough of a fair chance to make me happy.

Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit for my role in this whole happiness equation. Maybe it wasn't only the people and places and circumstance that created my happiness. A lot of things in my life changed to make me happy, and I had a lot of help, but ultimately I was the one who had to make the changes. I'm not the girl that I was before the dot on the timeline any more. I'm much stronger and all of the things that happened and the people that I met helped me get here. I guess that the world has presented me with the opportunity to prove it. To stand on my own two feet and fly with my own wings and take charge of my happiness and I just haven't been trying hard enough.

No one promised this journey would be easy, but I know that it will definitely be worth it.

Just One Thing

Hello again, ye few but faithful. I know I haven't written anything in a few weeks, but it was never my intention for this to be a daily or even weekly blog. My writing is intended to be a catharsis, a way for me to work out what's on my mind and keep me from reverting to less healthy options when I'm lonely or stressed. I won't always need it, but that doesn't mean that I'll only write when I'm down, more that I'll write when I feel inspired or like I have something worthwhile that needs to be said.

2012 Drumstick Dash

Good News first. Big changes over the last week include running (yes running) in the 2012 Stellar One Drumstick Dash 5K in Roanoke, VA. Last year I walked with my Mom and Dad and finished in last place out of about 15,000 people in 1:44:18. I was miserable and in pain and even though I was happy that I completed it, I was determined to do much better this year. I didn't run the whole thing, but I did finish in 56:24:92 which was well under the 1 hour time limit I set for myself and blew last year's time out of the water. I wasn't in pain, didn't have to stop, and didn't finish last. I felt really good at the end of the race this year. Oh, and I ran it with some great friends in a giant tutu!




2011 Drumstick Dash

In other news, despite the good things that have happened, I've been struggling quite a bit since I moved to feel in control. I've always said that I don't like change and don't do well with it, but I'm realizing more and more that I only focus on "bad" changes when I say this. As of this week I have completed seven months of changes, and most of them have been good changes. And I like them.

I got to spend the last week at home for Thanksgiving and was able to go to my family doctor for a check-up and to have my HA1C levels checked. I was diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic in May of 2011 and my Hemoglobin A1C level was a shocking 9.4, which is just ridiculous. Being diabetic was something that had scared me for a long time because it runs in my family and I've seen how devastating it can be. As I got bigger and bigger, I held onto the delusion that I was okay because at least I wasn't diabetic. Until I was. I started on 3 different medicines and tried on my own to lose weight, but after a year I was only able to get my HA1C down to a 7.5, which was still too high.

When I made the decision to start CrossFit in April of 2012, I never dreamed that it would be as effective as it has been or that it would change so many things so drastically. By cleaning up my diet and working hard I was able to stop taking one of my medications after only two weeks. At the end of three months I had gotten my HA1C down to a 5.7, which is considered to be in the normal range. Now at the end of seven months, not only have I lost a total of 75 lbs, but my HA1C has remained at a 5.7 and my doctor has said that it is okay for me to stop taking medication all together!

I know that this doesn't mean that I'm cured, or that I'm no longer diabetic, but being off of medication is a huge deal. It means that I'm in control of something. That diabetes is not controlling me, I control it. Not with medicine, but with the choices I make and with my hard work. Being off the medicine feels amazing, but I'm also a little scared because now it's all on me. If I want to stay off of the medicine, every choice that I make is even more important because now I'm working without a safety net. I'm only a little scared though. I have had "crutches" before and have had them taken away and it's scary at first, but realizing that you don't really need them is a really great feeling.

I went to a friend with my concerns about feeling out of control recently and she told me to focus on just one thing. Pick one thing that I can control and master it, even if it's small. Before I went to the doctor I had planned on making the one thing taking my medicine. Going forward without the medicine I think it's important to focus on my nutrition and the first "One Thing" I'm going to work on is not stopping for fast food. When I started my Whole 30 nutrition challenge I had pretty amazing willpower where fast food was concerned because it had been my downfall for so long. I drove down "Fast Food Row" on my way home every day and all the brightly colored buildings taunted me as I passed. I had tried to make myself think that fast food was not allowed, at all, ever. I just would not stop there. I felt like I had pretty much conquered that demon before I moved and wasn't craving my old comfort foods like I used to.

Since I moved I have slowly loosened my restrictions and have found that even though the food makes me feel terrible, I'm not struggling as much over making bad choices as I used to. I don't have an internal dialogue with myself wherein I try to talk myself out of the bad choice. I just go ahead and make the bad choice and beat myself up about it later. I don't want to do that any more. I want to feel confident in my choice to say no and to feel good about it and feel the strength of fighting for my health instead of the weakness of giving in to temptation. Until I feel that again, my prominent focus will be on not stopping for fast food, which will mean being prepared. I will have to think ahead and make sure that I have prepared meals in advance for lunches, and sometimes dinners, so that I won't take the easy way out when I'm stressed and hungry. If I have good food on hand, I'll eat good food, and I won't go searching for bad food.

Once I get that one thing under control, it'll be time for a new one thing, and one thing at a time I'll be making good changes again. And I like good change.

Motivation

"You are CrossFit. What's good about it is you."
 ~Greg Glassman, CrossFit Founder/CEO

Call it obsession, drinking the kool-aid, joining the cult...or just making a choice to have a better life and not settling for mediocre any longer. They say that you know your friend does CrossFit because it's all they talk about. I guess this is true for me, but right now I don't really have anything else going on in my life. What else would I talk about? I've found that the most interesting, passionate conversations that I've had with both friends and strangers in the last 7 months have revolved around me explaining the greatness that is CrossFit and exactly what it is I love so much about it.

It's not like I'm some CrossFit missionary, knocking on the doors of unassuming neighbors asking, "Do you know Rich Froning?" These conversations start in all sorts of ways. Sometimes I'll get a message out of nowhere, from someone I haven't talked to in months, asking me what this CrossFit business is all about. I've even had a 10 minute conversation with a stranger at a restaurant who asked what the symbol on my sweatshirt signified (the WOD Addiction kettle bell skull). "Oh I've heard about CrossFit, is it some kind of exercise program? Is it like P90X?"

I was realizing as I told the stranger about CrossFit that I led with the basics about the work we do, but the bulk of the conversation wasn't about the finer points of burpees or kipping pull-ups. I didn't define the CrossFit glossary and bombard him with WOD this and AMRAP that. I didn't even name-drop Fran. Those aren't the parts of CrossFit that are going to convince someone to step in a box & change their life, in my humble opinion. I told him about the community, and the support, and the encouragement. I told him how much you hurt, but how good it feels to gauge how hard you worked by how wiped out you are at the end of the hour. I told him how taking my first step into the box was the best decision I had ever made. I told him how the person who finishes last gets cheered for just as much, if not more, than the person who finishes first. I told him how this is usually me. He jokingly implied that I must finish last on purpose.

His comment stuck with me for awhile after I left and got me to thinking about my motivation. I obviously don't finish last on purpose, but I still don't think that I always push myself to give as much as I can. I find that I really do feed off of the encouragement that I get from others and always feel like I can do more and do it better when I have that support. I feel like I struggle more and rest more when I don't have someone else pushing me. This is a problem. I think I've been spoiled and it's made me into a needy person. It worries me.

When I found out I had to move before I had planned, I was scared. I was worried that I wasn't ready and wasn't strong enough to continue my journey on my own. That without my support system around me I was sure to fail and backslide. The worst week that I had had up to that point was the first week that I was away from the box by myself. I am apparently the queen of self-fulfilling prophecies. I fear that I am beginning to speak this sentiment into existence. No matter how many times someone tells me that I am strong enough, and I can do it...sitting here alone day after day, making all these choices on my own with no one to back them up, I find myself struggling to believe it. To believe in myself. To make the right choices when no one is around to see me make them. To be motivated and stay motivated for no one else's benefit than mine.

I think most people want to feel important and validated. It's human to want to feel loved and cared about, like what you do matters. I know that's how I would prefer to feel, especially since I didn't feel that way for so long. Now that I've gotten a taste of what that feels like, I don't like going back to the way I felt before. It's hard to come home and not have anyone to share your day with or to feel like you're a loose thread pulled out of a blanket into which you used to be so tightly woven.

It has become a problem for me to need this so much. I can't say that I'm truly happy with myself if I still feel like I need others to validate me. There are people out there who don't care what others think, good or bad, and are perfectly happy with who they are. I'm obviously not there yet. I need to find a way to be my own best cheerleader, especially since 99% of the time now I'm the only one there for me. I'm the only one that can stop myself from making bad choices and I'm the only one who can keep myself on the right track. If I can't find a way to do it alone these changes will never be lasting. I haven't given up, but I definitely need to fight harder for me. For my life.

Strong at the Broken Places

Every year the Department of Veterans Affairs does something special for Veterans Day on their website. Last year they featured all of the VA employees who are also Veterans by posting pictures of them in their uniforms from the time they served. This year they are debuting a new video called "Strong at the Broken Places" that will showcase Veterans overcoming their struggles and thriving in the civilian world. Being strong even though a part of them might have been or may seem broken.

The phrase "Strong at the Broken Places" is part of the larger quote pictured here from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I haven't read this book, though I probably should, so when I heard the quote and explanation in relation to the project for Veterans day, it struck a chord with me, even though I have never served. The whole point of the quote, to me, is that life is tough for everyone, in some way, at some time. No one is without their own struggle, but it's these things that break us down that help to build us up and make us stronger.

I used to feel that I was a broken person. I felt I was living in a state of brokenness and wasn't fixable. I know now that isn't true. I was broken. Parts of my body were literally broken, my spirit was broken, but as it turns out neither were broken beyond repair. Titanium rods fixed my legs, and over the last few months CrossFit has taken care of the other parts that were broken. Recovering from my brokenness has also given me a new perspective on my situation. I chose this picture from a CrossFit event I participated in last weekend that benefited "No Greater Sacrifice" to accompany the quote. As I was working on the picture I started to think that it wasn't the right image. That I looked weak and broken and maybe I should chose one that made me look strong. The more I thought about it, even though this is usually how I end a WOD and I may feel that I'm going to die, this is actually when I feel the strongest and the most alive. I can look back on all that I've just accomplished and be proud of myself for making it through.

Most everyone in my life knows, now, about my story and my accident, but for a long time following the accident it was all that I was. EVERYONE knew, and I told the story so many times that it started to feel like something that hadn't happened to me, it was just this story I told. I wanted to avoid some people because they always brought it up or asked about it, of course out of love and concern, but it was difficult for me to have to keep living in that place. It's not a secret, or anything that I'm ashamed of, and I will still tell anyone that is curious all about it, but it's no longer my calling card. It's not, "Hi I'm Ginny and I was in a car accident" with everyone I meet. (Even though I do talk about it here quite a bit.)

I was fortunate enough to work the National Veterans Wheelchair Games this year and was inspired by the drive and determination of the Veterans competing and of the community spirit that they shared. I have seen the same thing in CrossFit, and have watched many Veterans compete in this sport as well. I am also excited to go to the Working Wounded Games next weekend as I'm sure it will be a very powerful event. Working with Veterans has also helped me to gain perspective on my life and I have a great amount of respect for every man and woman in this country that has put on a uniform and defended my freedom. It saddens me to see such young kids returning from overseas and the toll that fighting a war has taken on them, but at the same time I am inspired by the will of some of these young men and women to not let their experience define the person they are when they return to civilian life in a negative way. I am also inspired by the stories of the Veteran from WWII that was commanding an amphibious tank at 19 and the POW who escaped capture twice, and then came home and lived incredibly full lives. I could never imagine or pretend to understand what it's like to fight a war, but I have seen first-hand the effects of war. Injuries that are both seen and unseen, mental and physical battle scars. People who have been broken but are strong at their broken places.

Knowing the sacrifices that these Veterans have made to protect our country makes what I've been through not seem as bad and makes me grateful that I'm not really that broken at all anymore. It may seem stupid, and I'm sure annoying to some people when I say it to them, but I really am thankful every day that I wake up and am able to walk and do things for myself and not be broken. I do have to occasionally remind myself that I am blessed in this way, but knowing where I have come from and where I am now, it doesn't take long to take stock of what is great in my life.

This November I urge you all to think about what makes your life truly great, and what blessings you wake up to every day. Make sure you thank the Veterans and active duty military that you know for helping you keep them.



The Skin I'm In, For Now

Since I currently have nothing better to do than wait for a hurricane to hit the east coast, and since the temperature is currently plunging into the 50s, I've decided to start going through all of the winter clothes that have been packed away since I moved. I went through all my spring and summer clothes a few weeks ago and took off a huge tub to the Goodwill of all the things I couldn't wear any more. I started that process when I realized that I could take off every pair of pants I owned without unbuttoning or unzipping them and figured it might not be the best first impression to have them falling down, or off, at my new job. I've replaced a lot of my work clothes for smaller sizes, some of which are also starting to get too big, but one thing I realized I haven't replaced are my pajamas. It's actually pretty comical just how big they are and it's a good thing I only have to sleep in them because I'm not sure how well they'd fare if I had to do any kind of activity in them. That really ought to be on the list for my next shopping trip.

 

This may be my own personal crazy, but I have discovered a sort of sentimental attachment to some of my clothing. There were many things that I added to the tub without a second thought, but as I start going through my winter clothes I have this mixed sense of sadness and joy when I find something doesn't fit. I know that rationally I should only be happy that my clothes are ridiculously big on me, and realize that continuing to wear them makes me look sloppy and unprofessional, but there are some pieces that I really like and spent a lot of money on and I find myself hating to have to get rid of them. It's not that I want to be able to fit in them again, more that I wish they would shrink so I could still wear them. Yet I find myself trying on sweaters and thinking, "It's not so big, I could probably still make it work..."

 

I was my old size for several years and had become uncomfortably comfortable at that size. I was used to that size. I had amassed a wardrobe for me at that size. It wasn't the most stylish or fashion forward wardrobe, but I had managed to acquire things that fit me relatively well and that I was comfortable in, for the most part, until I started to grow out of this wardrobe. If you aren't familiar with plus size clothing, and have never ventured to the small dark corners of the store it's usually relegated to, sizing usually goes up in 2s from a 14/16 up to a 24/26 or 26/28 in most stores. In a few places and in catalogs you can find bigger sizes but to my horror I was getting to the point that the biggest size in the store was no longer big enough for me. That was always my benchmark. As long as I can still buy the biggest size in the store, I'm okay. It was when I started having to go online to buy a 30/32 or a 3X/4X, sometimes even 5X that I finally scared myself enough to realize I had to change something, and that is when I had a scary talk with my doctor.

 

I haven't told many people, but the conversation that I had with my doctor the week before I started CrossFit involved options for weight loss. It was a discussion we'd had many times before, but this time I had narrowed down my options to two and was seriously considering one that had scared me for years, gastric bypass surgery. I was terrified of how big I had gotten and how futile my attempts to lose weight had been over the last year and I finally felt that surgery might be my only hope. Luckily the doctor and I decided that I should first try the second option I presented, joining Brickhouse CrossFit. One week later I embarked on this journey that has made the prospect of weight loss surgery not even in the realm of necessity for me.

 

It is sometimes difficult for me to see the changes that have occurred over the last six months. I am often acutely aware and at the same time oblivious to how far I have come in this short amount of time. I am definitely not a skinny girl, or even a fit girl, yet, but I sometimes still feel like a fat girl. Like the morbidly obese girl I used to be. I look at myself in the mirror a lot more than I used to because I have to remind myself that I'm not that girl anymore. That I'll never be that girl again.

 

I realize the changes when I try on clothes that used to be too small and are now ridiculously big. I rejoice over the fact that I can sit at a booth in a restaurant now without having to make my whole group move to a table because the booth table is fixed to the floor or wall and I just can't fit. I smile inside and out when I can sit in one seat at the movie theater with the armrest down. I cried a little when I didn't have to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extension on my last flight.

 

These are the things that I need to be holding on to, not the clothes that the old me used to have to wear. I'm currently only one or two sizes away from being able to buy "normal" women's clothes from any store I want, and that has been a goal of mine since the first time I had to buy men's jean shorts in middle school because there weren't any others in my size. Never. Again.

 

Here's to the next six months, and the rest of my life, being happier and healthier with every step.

 

 

 



 

 

Giving More

 

Today I dropped into a class outside my normal time at the box (where I'm still relatively new). Even though I've only been doing CrossFit for 6 months, I've worked out at a couple of different boxes and worked with multiple coaches, so I'm pretty used to having to give a rundown of my life at the beginning of many a WOD. I'm sure that I'm a a bit of a pain to coach, especially right now when I have to avoid pretty much all squatting movements, but I'm also allergic to latex and can't use the stretching bands, and I still have to scale a lot of movements, so I can't always just get the rundown of the WOD and hit the floor running. I don't mean to be a pain, but sometimes I feel like that.

 

It's also humbling to be in a new class and work with a new coach and train with new people. It's hard to come at the workout from your head space of 6 months of training, knowing where you were on day one and seeing your current capability as a vast improvement, only to have others think that this is your first class ever. It kinda knocks you down a peg and makes you realize that even though you know you've made a ton of progress, you obviously still have a long way to go.

 

One of the things I've struggled with over the last two months is motivation and drive. I've found that I can do so much more than I thought I could many times over the last few months, but usually when I've done the most work I've had someone else pushing me or cheering me on. An external motivator can be a very powerful thing. When you have 10, 5, even 1 other person standing around you, telling you "you've got this" or "pick up the bar, do one more" it's easy to keep going because you have all that added strength to tap into. You want to please others and don't want to let everyone down. When all eyes are on you it's much harder to slack off. I still get support from my new coaches, but there's always a time for everyone when no one is watching you.

 

The trouble is holding yourself accountable and finding all that motivation from within. Sure you can try to think back on all those times that you did have everyone cheering you on, or imagine there's a coach at your shoulder counting your reps, but in the end it's all you and the bar (or kettle bell, or rower, or pavement - or whatever it is you're up against). Today my WOD was a triplet, 3 rounds of 500m row, 25 kettle bell swings (1 pood), and 15 sit-ups. I set my mind to keeping a 2:30 pace on the row, doing the kettle bell swings unbroken at 1 pood, and doing the sit-ups unbroken, and to finish the whole thing in 15:00. The kettle bell swings were the part I really wanted to focus on, but in the minute leading up to the countdown, and all through the row I kept wavering. "Can I really do all 25 unbroken every round?" "Maybe I should do 15 and 10" "No I can totally do 25." Back and forth. Determination and doubt. Ultimately I didn't make it unbroken and my time was 17:52, and I've been really hard on myself all day because of it. Seeing the picture at the top of the post on Facebook today made me regret not doing it even more. I know I had more in me, but when I had the kettle bell overhead on the 15th swing of the first round and my arms were starting to burn, I let myself give up.

 

I've started to think of how many times I've given up on little things, not only in my workouts, but in my food choices, and in life in general. I've got to stop giving up. The more times I do it, the easier it is to do it again and suddenly the little "give ups" become big ones and before I know it I'm staring down failure. October has been a pretty good month for me overall and I've hit several PRs and "firsts" but deep down I feel like I could have done more and I wonder what more I could have done if I hadn't given up so many times on so many little things.

 

I'm really excited about November and my goal is to work on my internal motivation. To keep trying new things and going for one more rep. I can only be accountable to myself now and really the only person I need to worry about letting down is myself. I'm the one that will be stuck with the regrets at the end of the day, and who wants to sit around beating themselves up about what they could have done, but didn't?

 



We Are the Dreamers of Dreams

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You hear all the time, especially on reality competition shows, "This is my dream!" It doesn't always hold a great deal of weight when it comes from a 15 year old to hear that being on American Idol has been their dream "all their life" but if you think about it, what was the last thing that you focused on and worked for over the course of 15 years, or 5, or even one year? You watch 16, 17, 18 year old kids realizing their "dreams" by winning Olympic medals and "retiring" in their 20s from a sport they've been training in for the better part of their lives. I wonder what goes on mentally when you achieve your dreams at such a young age. Are you done dreaming, or do you get a new dream? Will the new dream mean as much as the original dream?

I've thought that I've had dreams in my life. When I was very young I was a gymnast. I watched young girls competing in the Olympics and I was going to move to Texas, train with Bela Karolyi alongside Kim Zmeskal and Keri Strug, go to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and realize my "dream." It obviously didn't happen. I think that I was a pretty good gymnast and that I maybe could have made a go of it. It wasn't that criticism kept me from pursuing this course, or a lack of courage, but many more factors come into play for a child to follow their dream, and this one just wasn't meant to be.

As I've grown older, I worry that I've stopped dreaming and the things that I would have dreamed about as a child become merely things that I'd like to do. I think dreams require much more effort and planning. They require focus and determination, practice and intense study. Dreams are much more than a want, they are a deep desire and need to fulfill a wish. A wish that you had the courage enough to speak out loud. They require a willingness to "map out a course and follow it to an end" regardless of the costs.  That's how you achieve a dream. Doing something that you merely want to do is a much less ambitious goal because it's easier to stop wanting something than it is to stop fulfilling a need. When you stop fulfilling your need to dream it leaves an ache in your soul similar to the ache you might feel when you fail to satisfy your need for food, but much more potent.

I sometimes feel like a failure for not having realized a dream. I know that I'm still relatively young and that there's still time for me to dream. I'm sure that many people count themselves lucky, and feel they live blessed lives, yet they may have never realized a dream. They have somehow found a peace in the life that they have made for themselves and have decided that this is what they had dreamed of, even if they didn't know it. I haven't yet found a way to reconcile the conflicting emotions that I feel over living a life I hadn't imagined for myself. I look back on things that I had planned that didn't pan out and wonder if I these were really dreams of mine that didn't come true, or if they were only things that I had wanted, but not enough to see them through? Did I fail to realize these dreams, or just decided on new ones? Did other factors intervene and throw up roadblocks I couldn't get around? Did I listen to the critics that said I wasn't a good enough musician to teach others, did I let the constant rejection from jobs I'd applied to cause me to doubt my merit as a teacher? If these were really my dreams, why didn't I stay the course? Why didn't I fight harder?

I have been thinking lately that I may have a new dream. I'm a pretty open book about my feelings and about discussing my shortcomings. I am open to sharing my successes and failures. I think I'm more open about my life and what goes on in my mind than I've ever been in my life and I think a lot of that is due to finding my courage and my voice over the last few months and beginning to feel like there are people that are willing to accept me as I am. For some reason though I'm afraid to have a new dream. I'm scared that I won't be strong enough to see it through and I'm reluctant to speak it out loud, make it real, and then not be able to achieve it. Maybe feeling this deeply about this potential dream means that it really is a dream and not just a want. If it was only something I wanted, would I be this worried about making it known to the world? Would I be worried that people might think it's stupid or criticize me for dreaming it?

For now I'm going to hold this dream close and work on my courage to let it become real. In the meantime I'm going to keep working on this dream and also on becoming happy with me so that the realization of this dream doesn't become all that I am. I think that I need to be able to stand on my own and be fulfilled enough with what is in order to allow myself to reach for something more. To be able to set a course and follow it to an end, even if that end isn't the one I'd planned on, and be okay with the outcome. I'll keep you posted. :)

This post's soundtrack brought to you by John Mayer:

 

Celebrating the Small Things

I've begun to notice subtle changes in my attitude, activities, and way of being. Subtle on the surface, but when viewed as a whole they amount to a monumental change in who I am as a person. Tonight I celebrate the small changes that make big change possible.

I am an escalator climber. I used to think there ought to be a support group for people crazy enough, or impatient enough, to climb a perfectly good moving staircase. I used to think that the inventor of the escalator probably died a small death every time someone climbed an escalator and considered his hard work a futile waste of his life. I used to dread the "Escalator Temporarily Stairs" and deemed this a decidedly inconvenient occurrence, far too common in the DC Metro system to bother even having escalators in the first place. Then, one day as I was standing behind the long line of people on the right side of the ascending staircase, running late for CrossFit, I looked to the left, thought "warm-up?," and merged into the world of escalator climbers. Sometimes, I even take the regular stairs at a semi-jog. And I don't really get winded or have to stop. This is huge for me.

I am also a standing commuter. This really wasn't a conscious choice in the beginning. It just happens that I frequent inordinately busy Metro stops at the most hectic times of the day and there are never seats. Also I have lingering personal space issues and don't particularly relish the thought of being smashed up against a random stranger. I'd much rather stand. So I do. Even when there are seats, I usually stand. Young strapping men will sit and I feign an inner indignation that they didn't offer the seat to a lady first, but really, I would rather stand. My balance is getting pretty awesome. My lower back doesn't bother me. Old me would probably have shamelessly sat on the not-washed-since-it-was-installed Metro "carpet" before I would have stood on a moving train for 30-45 minutes everyday. Sometimes four times a day. Huge.

I walk all the time. Everyday. Sometimes as much as a mile or more. In March, before I started CrossFit, I had to go to Charleston for work. It was the first time in several months that I got to hang out with a bunch of my fellow interns so when everyone wanted to go out to bars and on a walking ghost tour, I did my best to tag along and keep up. It was incredibly difficult and one night when we were walking over a mile to the downtown area I had to give up on walking and take a bike taxi (who I felt REALLY sorry for, even though he said we weren't his most difficult ride that night). Now I look forward to walking and even walk the mile plus to my CrossFit box when I have enough time. I used to get winded and have these weird pains in my ankles and knees when I had to walk from my office to the hospital canteen. I walked the Drumstick Dash 5K last year in 1:44:00 and finished dead last because I had to stop so often and was in so much pain. I walked the 4 on the Fourth this year in 1:29:00 and finished dead last, but I didn't have to stop at all. I can't wait to do the Drumstick Dash this Thanksgiving and NOT come in dead last. I may even run some of it.

Watching the  2012 CrossFit Games (again) this week, I heard this quote during one of the commercials:

 "The reward for doing well is the ability to express your fitness in everyday life."

I think that for some people CrossFit is a means to perform better in another sport. For others it is their only sport. Right now, for me, CrossFit is my sport and I am able to express my fitness by simply living my everyday life in a much more active way and it feels awesome to break down barriers and approach the world with much less restriction and limitation.

Connections and Community

I've been thinking a lot in the last few days about what I want to write. I was afraid when I started this blog that I would eventually spill out every ounce of wisdom in me and be left with nothing else to say. I don't think I'm quite tapped yet, but I haven't been able to formulate anything particularly noteworthy as of late. So I've just been thinking. This may end up a little free form and rambly, but it's starting to ache a little to continue to mull things over, so here goes.

I've been feeling a little isolated lately. More than just lonely. Disconnected. An anthropology professor I had once said of college freshman that their success or failure depends on their ability to become part of a community. Most freshman enter college without ties to a sense of community. In high school they most likely had their identity tied to something and some group of people - sports team, band, church group, yearbook staff... And save the odd exception, most of this gets left behind as they move on with their lives. They start out from scratch and eventually (ideally) a community will form, or they will assimilate into an existing community. From my understanding, this is the purpose of living in dormitories. To build community.

My freshman year was textbook, according to this professor, on the surface. I was in marching band in high school, this was my community, but I went to a college that only one other person from my graduating class was attending. I joined the marching band in college - a built-in community of 400. I was living in a dorm, in a suite with 5 other girls. More community. I spent most all my time in the music building which was full of like minded individuals with whom I should have shared a common ground. I liked to hang out in the basement lounge (when I should have been practicing) because I felt less alone when I was around people. I didn't like being shut up in a windowless room for hours on end - hence why I didn't remain a music major for very long. In my mind I was a part of this community and I "knew" a lot of the people in it. It didn't really matter that most of them probably didn't know me, except as that girl that was always in the lounge. As much as I tried to tell myself that I belonged, I didn't really...

It wasn't until my second semester that I really put myself out there and rushed a music fraternity. To my shock and suprise I was accepted and it was then that I really found my community and my place in college. Even when I changed majors and left school for several years, that community was still there. When I went back to school most of the girls I had known in my first two years had graduated and moved on with their lives, but the core of our sisterhood was still there and that common bond we all shared made it easier to step back in and still feel at home.

It seems like I've repeated this cycle several times in my life thus far. Leaving home to go to college, leaving college and moving home, and now leaving home again to move out on my own. Each time I have the "freshman year" feeling of disconnect as I face an unkown world and try to find my place in it. In the last four years since I graduated it was much harder to find a place as all I really had in my life were work and my family. I've never really been connected to my any of my work communities. It always seems like work stays at work, for the most part. It wasn't until I started CrossFit that I had that feeling of community again and felt like I had a place to belong again. Even more than I had in college; I was an active part of this community, but here I find myself a freshman all over again.

Right now I've got that first semster feeling, that I'm hanging around like-minded people, but not really belonging to the community. Part of this could be my reluctance to let go of the life I have just left behind. It is even harder now that I've been back home to visit. Being back in the community where I've spent 2/3 of my life makes this new place feel even more foreign. I felt so at ease in my old box, as if I'd been there all my life. There was a calmness in my workouts, a familiarity that felt like being wrapped in your favorite blanket. A feeling I just haven't found here, yet.

I've been thinking a lot about how I feel in my new life. Mostly I feel uncomfortable and alone. I work in a small office, in a cubicle, and for most of my day I don't talk to anyone. I go to CrossFit in a place where I still feel like a visitor  and I still don't know many people. Then I ride a train with a bunch of strangers and come back to my apartment buidling (full of more people I don't know) to my empty apartment where I have no one to talk to. I really only realized this weekend how much I don't talk any more and how much I do alone. I lived alone for a few years in college and I got used to doing things alone and I told myself I didn't mind. That there was something liberating about being able to go to dinner alone, or go to a movie all by yourself. I've realized though that going out to eat and to the movies is my equivalent of sitting in the music lounge. It feels better to be around people, even if they don't know me.

I'm trying to find contentment with my new life. I'm trying to play the cards I've been dealt. I'm hoping that eventually I'll feel like I'm a part of a community again, but I wonder if being content is the same as being happy. I've talked with others who have made changes like this before and their advice is that when you come to terms with the fact that this is your life and become happy with where you are, that things will start to get better. But still I wonder if "what is" is the same as "what's meant to be"? At what point do you settle for being content with the life you have and stop longing for the life you've envisioned for yourself, or the life you wish you had?

I've been thinking a lot lately. I don't have many answers yet.

The Fear Factor

A friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook the other day:

This got me thinking about my own fears, and how many of them over the last few years have involved getting hurt. In some ways I have considered these completely justified fears for someone who has gone through an extreme amount of pain and injury, but rationally...who fears pain? Other than me?

I don't think anyone (sane) relishes pain or looks forward to it, or seeks it out, but I've come to realize that pain is inevitable. In CrossFit, it's the closest thing to a certainty there is. At some point, pretty much everyday, you're going to do something that's going to give you pain. Not always lasting, not always excruciating, but something's gonna hurt. If it doesn't, you're probably not working hard enough. Right? The trick is coming to terms with this fact and also learning to read your pain. Is this soreness pain, muscles screaming in protest of the work you've just forced upon them? Or is it the "yep it's cold and rainy and you're getting old so everything's gonna ache" kind of pain? Or maybe it's the "yeah I was totally not using my legs and hips on those kettlebell swings and now my lower back hurts" kind of pain? The pain is there to tell you something, but you have to listen.

So, being a rational, intelligent person, knowing that pain is inevitable, there's really nothing to be afraid of, is there? I know I'm going to hurt, but the likelihood of "getting hurt", especially under the watchful eyes of skilled and certified coaches, is relatively low. Still the fear creeps in. It tells you that you can't do something, or that you shouldn't do something. It keeps you from progressing by building walls and setting boundaries that you allow yourself to live within. (As a side note, I think in some cases this is a good system. I'm terrified of driving fast, so I don't. This fear sets a limit in my life that keeps me from speeding, which is universally accepted as a bad practice.)

This is how fear lies. It tells us we can't until we find ourselves walled in to the point of paralysis. "I can't run, I have bad knees." "I can't do a handstand, I weigh too much and I'll break my arms." "That seems like a bad idea, I'll probably get hurt if I try..." This leads to a plethora of missed opportunities and chances not taken, and a lack-luster life spent feeling like you'll never succeed or be good at anything.

You know what feels completely amazing? When you shut down the fear and turn off the voices that have been telling you "you can't." Calling out fear on its lies and proving them false. Lifting heavier than you thought you could. Going unbroken on 21 kettlebell swings when you usually start out planning to break them into 3 sets of 7. Running farther than you've tried before, even if you got lapped by everyone. Twice. Kicking up into a handstand and hanging out there for a while. Not only without breaking your arms, but feeling STRONG while you held the position.

Was some of that painful? Sure. My lungs were burning after the kettlebells and after running 400 meters 3 times. The handstand didn't hurt at all and it was a movement I was most afraid of trying. Did I get hurt? Absolutely not.

Fear is a Liar. Pain will tell you the truth. It will tell you just how hard you worked. It will tell you what you still need to work on and how far you need to go to get there. It will even tell you when you pushed too hard or pushed incorrectly. Listen. When you lay in bed at night, sore in a million different places, completely exhausted, pain is screaming its truth. "You are awesome. You worked so hard today and it's making a difference. You are getting stronger and you are capable of so much more than you ever imagined." Listen.

Shut out the fear. Embrace the pain. Break down your walls and revel in the awesomeness that's waiting on the other side.

Life Changing Days

If you'll indulge me a slight deviation from regular programming... (get comfy, it's a long one)



I meant to write this post yesterday, on October 5, but as life tends to do, I ran out of time and it's now after midnight on October 6 - which isn't as significant a day, though I guess you could say it was the first day of looking at the world differently. October 6, 1998 to be exact.

Though I'm now a total CrossFit junkie, in high school and in college I was a band nerd. Alright. I'm Still a band nerd. Music is something that's in my soul, a first love that will always be a huge part of who I am. I like to play music, listen to music, sing music. I haven't played in several years now and I really miss playing in a band. There's something about music that you can't really explain to someone who doesn't already get it, and it's something that I think is probably different for everyone. I'll try, but it may not make much sense.

The part that I love best about playing music is being a part of a bigger whole. I was never the best musician as I lacked the discipline to practice consistently and the confidence to play as well as I could have, but I never aspired to be a professional euphonium player. (All of you who just asked "What's a Euphonium"? That's why Google was invented.) It's not like there's a huge demand for professional euphonium players in the world. I wanted to teach music and be a band director and help other kids find the feeling that I found when I was a part of the whole.

Euphoniums are, I feel, the forgotten section. No one really notices you until you screw up. You rarely get the melody, you aren't really the coolest or most well known instrument. Euphoniums are big and bulky and heavy. Who would willingly choose to haul that thing around when you could play a 5oz piccolo? But I loved the sound of a euphonium. Mellow, deep, full. Melody can be over-rated. Give me a nice contrasting counter melody or an interesting harmony. That's what the euphoniums do. Or hold out whole notes. Or hit the 1s and 4s. It's not all exciting, but important nonetheless. I digress.

Back to what I love. I love to play a piece and feel the swell of a crescendo or feel each beat on the timpani pulse in my chest or hear a contrasting line soar over the rest of the band and to feel the tension of a discord and the relief of the resolution. To have all of that give you the all over goosebumps. To see a crowd of hundreds of people leap to their feet and cheer as you play as hard and as fast and as loud as you can during a halftime show. There's something about those moments in music that you feel and can't express and there's those pieces of music that will always give you those feelings. Which brings me back to the beginning of this post.

This last week I've been listening to a lot of the instrumental music that I have on my iPod, which sadly isn't a lot and they are probably not the most "music major" quality kinds of pieces, but they are the ones that I love the most. Several pieces are from film and TV scores - the themes from Jurassic Park, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, others are just pieces that I've always enjoyed like Jupiter from The Planets and Eternal Father done by the US Navy Band and Chorus. But the one that has the most meaning is one that I played in high school and college, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss. It's a fairly simple piece, only one page, lots of whole notes in my part as I recall, but I always really liked it from the first time we played it in band class. This piece holds meaning for me mostly because of a very important performance, after that day when I started looking at the world differently.

I've been listening to this piece over the last week because I've been thinking about Josh. Josh was a tuba player in my high school band; my marching partner during my junior year season. An all-around great guy who could fix anything with duct tape. I started looking at the world differently on October 6, 1998 because on October 5th, Josh passed away. It was sudden, and tragic, and sad, and as he was the first person close to me I had ever known to die, this day changed my life. I began to question things and realize my own mortality in a way that hadn't occurred to my 16 year old mind the day before.

Being in band is like being part of any kind of group. Every member is important, every part is integral to putting forth the best and most complete work. Even though euphoniums are sometimes only playing whole notes, without them the sound would not be as full and as rich. Without Josh in the band, we were less. Without him in the world, we were less. Though our pain and sorrow could never equal that of his parents and sister, the band became a second family for me, and many others, and we mourned our loss as only we could - with music. We performed several pieces in a memorial ceremony in Josh's honor, one of them being On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss. The piece is based on the hymn It is Well with My Soul which I hadn't heard until it was sung at Josh's funeral. As I sat on stage in a black dress with Josh's family on the front row of our high school auditorium, playing this song I'd played many times before, each note started to fill with more and more meaning. The music swelled and gave me goosebumps, the timpani pounded in my heart, and tears filled my eyes as me and my fellow band members paid tribute to the friend we had lost.

I didn't finish playing the piece during the concert that night, I couldn't, and as sad as it had made me, I never wanted to play it again. It hurt too much and brought up too much feeling. My freshman year in college, I had to play it again. Of course the band director didn't know the back story, but there I sat in rehearsal after the piece was passed out, bawling my eyes out (to the horror of my stand partner) as this familiar piece began to pull up all my memories of Josh again. But just as any memory of those we have lost, at first it is painful as you long to have them with you again and you are still dealing with the fact that this can never be. As time goes on though, memories start to bring you joy instead of sadness. Which is why I can now listen to this piece and smile when I remember Josh, even if it's sometimes through tears.

Failure's Not Flattering

Today was a rough day. They happen. I am still struggling to get my act together in all aspects of my life, and I'm not doing such a great job. It should be easy. Eat, sleep, work, WOD, lather, rinse, repeat. Not much else that I really have to worry about. Oh, but I also have to pay bills, and do laundry, and keep my apartment clean, and deal with an injury. What's that called again? Oh right, life. This is what everyone goes through. No one lives in a perfect bubble of a world where curve balls and speed bumps don't exist.

I clearly do not take well to change and get easily overwhelmed. This blog is part of what is helping me deal and work through it, but some days are just more difficult. For one reason or another things don't align just right and you're all out of sorts and before you know it you're having a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad day. It all rolls down hill and ends up leaving you feeling like a Sam's Club size jar of Weak Sauce gasping for breath, dizzy, and having to sit out of part of your workout. Feeling like a failure.

I don't like feeling like this. Who does? I haven't felt like this in a long time and I'm not happy with the person I am when I let that feeling creep in. Well, to be honest I have been feeling like this since I moved, but BEFORE that I didn't feel this way and I've got to find a way to get back to feeling strong and awesome again. Maybe I shouldn't try to focus on so many changes at once, but I feel like if I drop even one of the balls I'm not gonna be as good of a juggler in the long run. I worry about only focusing on one thing to the detriment of all else. Right now I kinda feel like I'm doing everything halfway and getting nowhere.

The funny thing is that tonight I got more "good jobs" than on nights where I thought I did much better. Really? THAT was a good job?? I've got to stop being so hard on myself. Realistically I know that any work is better than no work. Showing up to workout tonight was half the battle. I always say, "as long as I'm trying, failure's not possible." I didn't fail tonight. I came, I warmed up, I did some work, I tried. I didn't get through everything and had to take more rest than usual, but all that I did do was way more than I would have done if I went home instead.

I've got to stop wearing my failure face and be more proud of myself on the nights that I struggle the most. I'm gonna take a few beats, catch my breath, and then reflect on the things I did well, instead of the things that were less than spectacular. Like tonight, when I couldn't do any more wall balls, or sumo dead lift high pulls, I did 1 minute AMRAP after 1 minute AMRAP of burpees. For many of them I was able to jump back onto my feet at the end. Burpees were one of the hardest (who am I kidding, they are still one of the hardest) movements for me. Getting down to the floor, shooting my feet out, jumping back up, fluidly? Not so much 5 months ago, but slowly I'm getting there and mastering the little steps in this one very basic movement is something I always go back to when measuring my progress. I still remember the days when I could only do them holding onto the weight bench, and how terrified I was when Amanda took my bench away. I need to bottle the feeling I got when I did my 30 birthday burpees and hold onto it tightly every time I feel weak in some other area.

I know I'm a long way from where I'd like to be, but everyday I walk through the door of the box it means I'm still on the journey, thus NOT a failure.