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  • Ok but ALSO:
  • Midlife POV
  • Influence and Dooce
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  • Before and after
  • A cringe confession on friendship

Archives from 2002-2006

I’ve pretty much round-filed the idea of running the Portland marathon in October.

A few weeks ago I was struggling with that decision, trying to determine if setting aside the second-marathon goal for the time being meant I was being self-aware and doing what was best for me at this particular point in my life—or if, you know, I was just being a total pussy.

Training is physically hard, of course, but it’s also mentally draining. It takes so much: so much time, so much preparation, so much discipline, so much headspace. The reason it’s enormously life-changing to cross a marathon finish line, I believe, isn’t really the 26.2 miles you just ran—it’s the weeks and weeks of Herculean effort it took to get there in the first place.

I will absolutely run another marathon someday, but for plenty of reasons, this isn’t my summer to work on that. I’ve got so much going on right now I feel like I haven’t relaxed in weeks, and I guess I know in my gut that adding weekly long runs to the mix would be a poor choice, both for me and my family.

So here’s what I’ve been doing for fitness instead: whatever I want. After months of forcing myself to jump around to DVDs, then more months of having a trainer tell me what to do, then more months of making myself run way past the point when I wanted to stop, exercising simply because I enjoy it is an entirely new concept to me.

Each night after the boys go to bed I get into my workout gear and leave the house. Sometimes I go for easy runs, sometimes I do long hilly walks. Sometimes I walk half a mile, then sprint for five minutes, then hike up a steep set of stairs. Sometimes I ride my bike. I don’t wear my GPS watch, I don’t check my time or distance, I just go.

I’m finding the walks to be particularly therapeutic. I’ve never been able to mentally zen out while running, my head gets devoted to trying to distract my body from the overwhelming feeling of OH HEY THIS SUCKS and all I can really pay attention to is whatever music I’ve got blasting on my iPod. I think there’s value to that sometimes, like when you just want to set your think-meat to OFF, but that’s not really what I want or need right now. Walking is much quieter and calmer and my brain is free to wander around like an off-leash dog. I often leave the house totally worried about some problem, then arrive back home an hour later feeling much more capable of working it out.

I was so proud of myself for getting through the marathon training, but you know, I’m actually equally proud of myself right now. I know, that sounds goofy, but I’m just happy to have what feels like a totally normal, sustainable relationship with exercise. I work out every day because it feels good. I don’t have to talk myself into it and I don’t have to coach myself through it. It just feels good. This is what I’m doing right now and in a few months I’ll probably do something different, but I truly believe, now more than ever, that I’ll always be doing something.

I’ve been thinking how many different paths I’ve been on, fitness-wise, and how every stage was right for me at the time—from the DVDs I could do in my living room while a baby creaked back and forth in a nearby Fisher-Price swing to the expensive trainer who pushed me outside my comfort zone to the kickboxing classes I felt so badass for surviving to those endless lonely Friday afternoon runs that cracked me open and showed me I was made of steel when I wanted to be.

It’s hard not to get swayed by the testimony of others, especially when they’ve found something that works for them. You hear the excitement in someone’s words and you start thinking you need to be on that path too. Eat what they’re eating, work out at the gym they go to. But it’s pretty rare that the footsteps fit your own stride, especially as time goes on. Maybe this, above all else, is the most important thing I’ve learned in fitness and in life: it’s all about what works for you. Whatever that is.

I got married in a light blue dress I bought for about $100 at what used to be The Bon. I remember the elderly saleswoman who rang up my purchase, smiling sweetly at me and asking me if I was buying it for prom.

I had to wear these weird boob stickers under it on my wedding day, since it didn’t allow for any kind of support garment. I also wore clear plastic heels.

So, to recap: cheap fake satin dress, boob stickers, hooker shoes. I was the classiest bride ever.

The dress has been hanging in the back of a closet ever since. Not stored or preserved or even slightly protected: just hanging there gathering dust and crumpling on the floor.

I dug it out in 2008 and took some photos, just for fun. I learned that if I needed boob stickers in 2001, I would need something more like an anti-gravity device to wear it now.

I do think it’s pretty, but let’s be honest: I’ll never wear it again, it’s hardly the sort of heirloom you pass down for someone else’s wedding, and even if it were, I have two boys, and if it turns out either one of them wants to wear a dress on their wedding day, not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m guessing they will want to choose their own.

So this weekend, as I was neck-deep in the process of cleaning out our various storage areas, I laid the dress on the pile of junk we were taking to the thrift store. I figured I have the photos and the memories and now I could reclaim the closet space.

JB, however, reacted as though I’d pulled off my wedding ring and hurled it in the toilet. “What the hell,” he complained. “What the HELL.”

“Listen,” I told him. “This is not a metaphor. This is cleaning.”

But it was no use. Back to the closet it went. Along with, I will confess, the clear plastic shoes. Because you never know when those might come in handy, like if I need to compete in a beauty pageant or offer to blow a guy for a dime bag of coke.

Tell me, what did you do with your dress? Is it professionally stored? Being worn by your daughter? Stuffed in the back of a closet to be ignored for a decade at a time?

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