Days of failure and defeat...

...mixed in with light and occasional victory.

Being home is both wonderful and strange.  It's a place where I can immediately sink into old patterns of sleep and tv and scrounging through the kitchen.  However, it's also peopled with folks who care about me.  And about my continued self-improvement.  Meaning they actually say something when I move in and the only exercise I do for the first week is walking from the couch to the fridge and back.  Being the wonderful, sweet, caring family they are, they could not let that stand.

Behold, my nemesis.

 

So I have been forced back into the world of workouts.  I didn't think it would be that bad, seeing as I was a kick-ass kick-boxer not two weeks before.  I was strong.  I was powerful.  I was athletic...

...at pretty much one kind of workout.  Turns out I can muster strength and competitive urges to make it through a class full of other people, but some things I am not so great at.  My mom wanted to go running.  Have I mentioned how passionately I hate running?  Too bad it's one of the best exercises for you.  My mother would have me run with her and I would spend almost the entire time thinking with every single step of another reason to hate it.  Two minutes in and I am always panting and winded with a stitch in my side and aches in my joints.  And whiney.  Running makes me whiney.  Or maybe that's just how I am.

While I like to think that my stamina is improving, the events of last weekend just showed me that even though I may be making every effort to be fit, athleticism is always just out of reach for me.  Like that rabbit they have out in front for greyhound racing.

Yeah, it's bizarre.

 

My mother and I went for a bike ride into town on Saturday.  Getting there and back is about fifteen miles so we figured it would be a decent workout (and we had done it before).  Since being home, I have gone on several successful (and rather impressive) rides so I thought this would be fine (well, I thought they were impressive).  Turns out:  not fine.

My bike is down in Denver right now, so I was on my sister's road bike.  It had served me well before, but this time it decided to turn on me.  I was following closely behind my mother and not paying much attention when she told me to turn, so when I looked up to see her turning in front of me, I was forced to slam on the bike brakes, flipping over the handlebars, skinning my knee, and losing the cute little basket attached to the handlebars (don't worry.  It snapped right back on).  While my bloody knee made me look super hard-core, the fall seems to have damaged the bike, a detail I did not notice until we had turned toward home and the chain slipped fully off the gears and into the spokes of the back tire.  Did you know a bike will stop abruptly when that happens?  Because it will.  And you will be left sitting on a curb with a broken bike and a bloody knee, feeling like a sad little child at twenty-four, waiting for your dad to come save you.  It's a very strange feeling (and the residents of the neighborhood you are curb-sitting will give you strange looks).

This is pretty much the level of pathetic I felt.

 

The next day, my family wanted to hike the mountain I live by (creatively named "Big Mountain".  Any attempts to change the name have been staunchly ignored by locals because we like our big mountain, damn it).  There is a hiking trail running up it that zig-zags back and forth all the way up to the summit.  My father was feeling like a rebel and decided that we should ignore the hiking trail and just climb straight up the mountain face.

Do you see that incline?  We hiked that.  For an eternity.

 

Have you ever climbed just an obscene amount of stairs?  You know how your thighs and calves start to feel like they've been set on fire?  Combine that with blazing sun and an elevation gain.  Then add to that a competitive spirit mixed with a weak body and a sister who runs track and thinks nothing of sprinting up mountains and you have a recipe for disaster.  It was bad.  We started stopping every twenty to thirty steps to "see the view" (read: give Calli a chance to breathe so she doesn't fall back down the mountain and die).  I was very quickly stripped of the false hope that I was in anything resembling impressive physical shape.

Now, these are sad stories of my workouts, but I have also had success stories.  I have been working out five to six times a week for about a month now.  I completed a twenty mile bike ride that was virtually all hills.  I have been on some gorgeous hikes and watched some cheesy tv from the safety of my elliptical machine.

And today I made cookies.  It may not be in the same category, but it is still a success.  You've got to take them where you find them.

 I regret nothing.

Tomorrow, I work out with my sisters again.  If I die, know that it was in the pursuit of victory.  And probably because of an over-developed sense of competition.  It's an illness.

On moving and madness...

 ...and why I seem to have an infinite supply of stuff.  Make it stop.

The boy and I have been packing lately.  This time (like every single time before it), I was sure that it would be simple.  I have moved so many times in the past few years (to college, home from college, to college again, to a house, to home, to the apartment...you get the idea) that I just figured I must have been cutting down on my clutter as I went, right?  I distinctly remember giving things away.  I think...yes!  I left my boomerang with my little sister!  I gave clothes to a thrift store!  I even threw away the random pictures that had covered my college walls (though it pained me to do so)!  Surely my mass of stuff would be so low that packing would be simple!

No.

On the bright side, I am pretty sure I could make a kick-ass maze with these boxes.

See, I forgot that, while I was progressively getting rid of things, I was also collecting things.  I was essentially trading things for more things.  All those clothes I gave away?  Doesn't make a difference because I bought more.  Remember that marriage thing we did?  That came with lovely, expensive gifts that now need to be re-packed.  If anything, packing is more complicated now, because instead of throwing away stuff at a whim, I have to check with the boy.  Half the stuff is his stuff and while I may think that the newspaper clipping about the Denver Bronco's team from last year does not matter, he needs it.

Packing takes forever.  Partly because I keep running out of boxes and scavenging for more, and partly because everything I grab to pack has to be looked through or tried on or remembered in about a million ways.

High School yearbooks: thumbed through.  Completely unexpectedly, I actually got nostalgic and happy looking through the little notes and pictures and memories.  Then, of course, I laughed a bit at how over dramatic we were and at some of the horrible clothing choices we made.  And make-up choices.  And hair choices.  Mistakes were made.

Though, to be fair, I regret nothing about this picture.  Dead Poets was the best.

Grandma's old music box: sat listening to the song over and over and remembering twirling in the bedroom in big skirts and being obsessed with tea sets.

Stuffed otter on the bed:  started laughing while cuddling our memento of St. Cuthbert (apparently otters blew on his feet to warm them.  Saints get cool stuff).

Pictured: St. Cuthbert and his otter foot-warmers.

Mop:  wait, we had a mop?  All this time, we had a mop?  If I had known that, I might have actually cleaned the floor.  Or maybe not.

Hand-me-down skirt from early high school: it fits!  Holy crap, it actually fits again!  Unfortunately, it still looks hideous.  Maybe I should let this one go.

Anyway, the real thing that moving has made me think of is simplifying.  De-cluttering.  Getting rid of the things in my life that are not really necessary or really beautiful.  On my study abroad trip, I lived for four months with just the possessions I could carry in my backpack.  I miss that simplicity.  Until I have it. 

We are moving.  To China.  For at least a year.  And for that year, we are bringing over a suitcase of clothing.  Maybe two.  And our computers.  That's it.  That is what we are going to live on for a year.  In another country.  Simplicity will be achieved.  And I'm both terrified and crazy-excited.

 I am going to this land.  And who needs stuff when you have great walls?

At least I know that if I panic, all my stuff will be waiting back in America for me.  All that crazy, ridiculous stuff that I use to define who I am.  Stuff like all of our pictures from our wall of Bob Dylan.  Stuff like Tyler's record collection or my DVD collection.  Stuff like all our books and pictures and notebooks, clothes and jewelry from years ago, hats with logos from favorite sports teams.  It will be here.  Waiting.

And I am pretty sure that I won't even miss it.