Tag: gym

crossing the bridge

| This post may contain content unsuitable for children and the impressionable. | 

Saying that parenthood is a club is obnoxious and makes all your childless friends want to kill you. Unfortunately, much like being a cancer survivor or divorcee, being a parent is something you really don’t “get” until you’re in the throes. You can intellectualize the experience. You can understand the statements being made by parents– “I think I’d rather be dead”– but you can’t truly internalize these statements until you’ve been there. How do I know this? Because I spent 29 years pretending I totally understood when my friends told me they wanted to jump off bridges. Turns out, I did not understand. Not until my little toesies were gripping the edge of said bridge did I reflect back on those friends and think, “oh my god. you were not kidding.” 

But this is the circle of life. It’s a series of epiphanies about how someone else felt and guilt that you did not react appropriately. Your relationship with your own parents improves mightily when you realize what an assbag you are for complaining about not having the perfect childhood. You’re lucky you came out alive. So long as no one tried to diddle you, you’re fine. Now move on. 

The hubs and I aren’t reading any parenting books. Primarily we don’t care, but we also don’t need any standards set that we know we won’t meet. Sitting in a mommy’s group last week I listened to one mom cry (CRY!) because she read a book about making her baby sleep 12 hours by 12 weeks. It worked perfectly for her sister-in-law, but 12 weeks had come and gone and her baby was only sleeping 6-8 hours a night. She actually used the word “failure.” Meanwhile, elsewhere in the United States, a woman is being arrested because her child was found eating herself in a cage. Let’s employ a little perspective here. Your cashmere swaddled bundle of 8-hours-of-sleep joy has the memory of a goldfish. Cage girl is going to be fucked up. It’s highly unlikely she’ll forget that time she ate her arm. 

Aging has (in my experience) little to do with wisdom and everything to do with perspective. Maybe perspective and wisdom are actually the same thing… (ZING!) 

I look back at pre-baby Caroline and I miss her, but I also think she’s a dumb ass. I don’t blame her, I’d be a dumb ass if I were her too. (Ha. See what I did there?!) But pre-baby Caroline didn’t understand her own reality relative to what it was to become. There is a legitimate grieving period that takes place when you take on a small child. The old you is gone. And while your life will normalize, it’s not going to ever go back. You have to say goodbye. And that goodbye is a big ball of hard. It involves facing your mortality and understanding the cyclical nature of all things, but most of all it just sucks so hard to realize that you will likely never feel okay signing up for the Santa Speedo Run again. Shit ain’t right. 

But, there’s a silver lining. Seriously. Your brain actually changes. 

I spent nearly seventeen years throwing up my food. I joke that I liked to have my cake and throw it up too, but obviously eating disorders are no joking matter. (If you or someone you know is suffering, I encourage you to reach out. Life if too short to be living in constant fear of food.) It started when I was in first grade and continued well into my twenties. I will not lie to you, to this day I think the sick Caroline looked fucking phenomenal, but I also know how much turmoil lurked within and I know that I don’t have the emotional or physical energy to be 130 pounds ever again. I used to dream of being pregnant, not because I wanted kids, but because I wanted a break. I wanted air cover to eat. I wanted to be able to put something in my mouth and not have to explain to myself what I was going to do to make up for it. Or figure out how to throw up in a public place. 

Now let’s fast forward. 

Yesterday I was at the gym. I look terrible. I was there in a feeble attempt to kick start the rejuvenation of my body, but I could not help but be distracted by the form staring back at me in the mirror. To be clear, this is nothing new. I’ve been looking at this alien form for a few months now. When I look in the mirror, I see a body of smooth lines and clear, youthful skin has been replaced by… lumps. Deep purple stretch marks make an interstate map out of my huge, efficient breasts. If my nipples could talk they would tell me to fuck off. Their once pink color is gone. They are dark and National Geographic like. Hours on a breast pump has pulled and stretched them to awkward protrusions. They are cracked and sore and angry. 

The stretch marks don’t stop there. My thighs– the Carsey wonders that once never touched– are now smooshed together like two obese people on a JetBlue flight. My stomach is jiggly and shaky and deformed. My arms have little wings. When I wear pants (or pant, singular, as only one pair fits) the excess Caroline bubbles over and makes my shirts catch. (Which is only made more attractive by my breasts tugging at the top.)  All in all, I’m a train wreck. And the silver lining? I really just don’t care that much. Not in a “I’ve given up” kind of way, but in a way that acknowledges that I made the choice to go whole ass with the Ben & Jerry’s during my pregnancy and now I’ve got other shit to do. The gym simply isn’t my biggest priority. Not by a long shot. 

And when I see skinny 23-year-olds prancing around half naked, I actually smile and think “you go girl! You walk around half naked in 43 degree weather.” Because I know that one day they will cross the bridge. They’ll find themselves staring at a foreign body in a mirror and thinking about how fucking hot and amazing they used to look and feeling bad about giving me stink eye when I rolled past them on the side walk with my bulky form and screaming baby. Every thing comes back around. 

It’s still not easy to be a plus-sized version of myself, especially not when I have to go home for the holidays, but for now I sort of see my body as a recovering vessel. The small boy used it to create a perfect little environment for baking to optimal cuteness and then left me with some broke ass shit. And it’s probably not the last time he’s going to pull something like that. 

Asshole. 

 

ask caroline!

In an effort to get some regular content going on the blog, as well as entice readers (that’d be you) to play along, I’m going to make Wednesdays “Ask Caroline” day. You may email your questions to me at linabeau@gmail.com and I will pick a few to answer on the blog every Wednesday. Won’t that be fun?

Now, you should know this is not a completely random idea. Yesterday I received the following text from a friend in need:

You’re the only person I can ask. Is it okay to shave your pubes in the showers at the gym?

I felt so honored, so lucky that I could help someone with my vast knowledge of the universe. And then I realized I could help tens of dozens of people right here on the blog. So here it is, I’m ready, willing and able to help you. Whatever you’re wondering, whatever is bothering you, just ask me and I will answer your question–anonymously– right here. On Ask Caroline Wednesday!

Drumroll please! Our first Ask Caroline Wednesday advice:

Dear Confused Pubes,

It’s an interesting question that you ask, one that I myself have pondered. Gym Etiquette has always been a questionable subject, especially because there are so many factors. While I’d like to think that etiquette represents the breeding of the person regardless of situation, that simply isn’t true. Take myself for instance. I was raised well. Two parents who were almost married the whole time, upper middle class, private school. Everything was set in motion for me to become the wife of a lawyer with 2.3 children and a Range Rover. And look at me now. Tattoos, swears like a sailor, and writes for a living.

So first I must ask myself a few basic questions. What kind of gym are we talking about? The YMCA? The Boston Sports Club? Equinox? Also, are there shower curtains? (God I hope so.) Are the showers communal? (God I hope not.) Are you bringing your own razor? Are you maintaining your grooming or initiating?

The way I see it is that if there is a curtain and you wash away the evidence thoroughly, you are totally in line. I can only imagine that there are women doing much worse things behind those curtains than a little Southern Shave. What’s more important is that you not hop out of the shower and walk over to the body cream and lather your newly minted parts in front of everyone. Let’s show a little decorum.

The type of gym will dictate the behaviors though, or at least how covert you need to be in execution. I imagine at the Gold’s Gym ladies are shaving their parts at the sink so everyone can see their piercings. I’m sure at the YMCA you’d find a mother in the shower using one of her four children as a foot prop while the other holds the soap up. (All while she nurses the youngest.)

Use your best judgment, but so long as you’re being discrete and ladylike, I’d say it’s well within your rights to trim the hedges at the gym.

While we’re on the topic, though, there are a few things that we should cover about gym etiquette:

1. It’s never okay to use the complementary Qtips for belly button cleaning. I know it’s tempting, I’m even on team needs to do it, but it’s not okay.

2. There is never an occasion where it is too much of a hassle to put on panties before blow drying your hair. Never. For the love of the innocent put on some britches before you bend over.

3. The hair dryer is meant for top of head hair only. Get it near the Southern Shore and you are asking to be ostracized.

4. The steam room should be treated like a civilized ladies lounge. If you would spread your bits about while having tea with friends, then you may do it in the steam room.

I hope this helps you with your quandary. It’s tough to navigate what’s okay and what’s not, especially when everyone around you is pressuring you walk around topless, stick Qtips in your navel and blow your lady parts dry. Resist, Confused Pubes, and you’ll be high society at the gym.

Email your questions to linabeau@gmail.com.

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welcome to kettle hell

rockyAfter the painful breakup with Lindsay, I was forced to find alternative ways to get slim. I started out by joining a more expensive gym because it stands to reason that the more expensive the gym, the thinner you get by being there. (Or if you can’t afford to eat, you can afford to get thin. Which reminds me, inappropriately, that I sometimes fantasize about getting dropped off in the depths of a third world country where I am forced to starve for 8-10 days because I wont eat mung. Of course when it’s all over, I magically wake up in the Back Bay. Left only with a new body and a deep, spiritual understanding of the horrifidy of the third world.) After joining the new gym, I immediately found a new gym BFF at my old gym, and now I feel like I’m marching towards doomsday. My membership is over in T minus 25 days and Nicole (my gym BFF) has given me new eyes for Equinox. With the help of her whimpering and somewhat self-sabotaging spirit, I am able to get my ass up at SIX IN THE MORNING to work out with George. The gym fairy. (Both because he loves him some Pussycat Dolls, and because he is light and springy like a wood nymph.)

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don my finest lululemon headband and stretchy pants and spend one hour wishing whole heartedly that I were dead. Unlike yoga, true working out involves a delicate mixture of jiggly fat and mirrors that can cause a person to consider Ace bandaging their body ala a lesbian who can’t afford to have her tits cut off. As I cardio dance my way to anorexia, I am forced to look into the mirror at what is clearly not a severe case of anorexia. Instead, its pre-makeup, cant-afford-matching-gym-outfits, or wake-up-in-enough-time-to-get-the-cowlick-out-of-my-ponytail itis. It’s a painful, painful realization that there are more bad angles than good ones and if I cant stop eating fried scallops and oysters for dinner I am never going to look like a gym fairy.

These Tuesday/Thursday workouts are nearly indescribable. In addition to puffing an inhaler before, during, and after class (are you getting a good visual yet?), I sometimes step on my own shoelaces so that I can buy myself some time to kneel down and pray to Jesus that he doesn’t take me at the mainstudio. To die in that lighting would mean the blush was really, truly off the rose.

Tuesdays are all about weights and cardio. Dance, lift, dance, lift, and just when you think you might pass out, do a few jumping jacks. (I had to alter the jumping jacks to more of a Fonda workout move. I think I have a fat pocket behind my shoulder that keeps me from succeeding with that range of motion. I’ve also had to start dressing in layers. One fateful morning my shirt rolled over my midriff whilst jumping and I nearly passed out from the shock– not to mention I was wearing boxing gloves and couldnt pull it down. Now I’m a two t-shirt girl. No more of that shit.)

On Thursdays, George has crafted a kettle bell boxing routine that makes me hate pilgrims and immigrants. (Something about kettles makes me think of pilgrims, and you know how scrappy immigrants can be.) After thirty minutes of swinging a 15lb bell around, trying heartily not to embed it accidentally in someone’s skull, we put on our boxing gloves.

The gloves are a blog unto themselves. If you can imagine what it would smell like to rub the toe of a sockless, recreational-basketball-playing homeless man on your upper lip, then you can begin to understand what we are dealing with. When you get past the moisture of other peoples’ sweaty palms decaying inside a pleather wrapped piece of floam, you can enjoy an aroma like dead babies. Mid-workout my mind wandered to a very dark place, and I began to believe that when I removed the glove my hand would be nothing more than a shriveled black mass. Plus, because I have a smell compulsion, I treat myself to a deep whiff every few minutes. Just to make sure it still smells like Ghandi’s pits.

When the gloves are on, we commence to swinging at freestanding boxing bags like a bunch of pansies. If La Hoya saw what we’ve done to the sport of boxing, his balls would crawl back in his body cavity. And we listen to Britney and Leona.

This morning, after eating inappropriately last night, I was enduring the most painful hour in a long time. At a certain point I offered myself a break, and clung to the boxing bag for support. Looking at my gym BFF, her face turning ruddy and spirit failing, I thought about how depressing it was that we were doing this to ourselves. I was about to go all Norma Rae on her ass and tell her that we were leaving. Going to the Paramount for eggs. But then I caught a gander of myself in the mirror. Right then, as I was gasping for air, unsure that it was me (because in the past I have spent time being mortified by my own body, only to realize that I’m looking at someone else in the mirror…. clearly I get a little delirious while working out) George danced over and insisted we get our asses in gear.

I took a deep whiff of the cuff of my glove and continued.

There I was standing at the steps in Philadelphia, hands raised over my head, 12 raw eggs sloshing around in my belly, sweat dripping down my grey matching sweatsuit.

“You know what you are? You’re a tomato!”