One Girls Journey From Fatass to Fabulous

THING ONE: Sitting on the couch with his blankie under a blanket, eyes wet and glassy.
MRSFATASS: Honey! You okay? What’s the matter?
You’ve carried that blanket around since you were a year old. Now you’re only a head shorter than I am, and have strong square shoulders and long legs, but darn if you don’t still look like my baby from time to time.

THING ONE: Wiping at eyes. Nothing!
MRSFATASS: You sure?
You’re so not good at hiding it.

THING ONE: Blink. Blink.
MRSFATASS: Come here.
Come on my sweet boy. You don’t have to be sad by yourself. Come snuggle your mama and let me remind you how powerful the hug of a parent is.

THING ONE: Stuart Scott died, mom.
MRSFATASS: I know, sweetheart. I saw it this morning as soon as I woke up. It’s sad, huh?
It’s funny how things can happen to people we’ve never met, but how we can be so deeply affected by it. It’s happened to me, too, baby. People who I only know through their blogs or their writing or their photos. Or people who I watch on TV. And enjoy. And feel like I’ve come to know.

THING ONE: He was funny. Do you think he knew he was going to die when he was at the ESPYs?
MRSFATASS: I think he probably knew, yes. But it was important for him to be there.
Sometimes when people know their end is coming, they get a burst like a second wind or something. So that they can handle a few things before they go. I think that’s God, baby, helping us do some of the things we need to do before it’s time for heaven.

THING ONE: I remember Big A, but I don’t think I got as sad as you and Dad when he died.
MRSFATASS: You were so young. It’s okay. I know you miss him and enjoy remembering him with us, but when you’re five I don’t think you’re supposed to experience things like adults do. You’re too young to process it all.
And I hate it. I hate that now you’re old enough to really feel what happens when somebody dies. I hate it.

THING ONE: Mom?
MRSFATASS: Yes baby?
THING ONE: I don’t want you to die.
MRSFATASS: Oh honey, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m here hugging you right now. And I love you.
THING ONE: But anyone can get sick. Right? Like, it could pretty much happen like any time.
Yep. That’s totally true. Anything CAN happen like any time.

MRSFATASS: Yes baby, that’s true. But you don’t have to spend any time worrying about it. You know why?
THING ONE: Why?
MRSFATASS: Because no matter what, you know I love you and I know you love me. We say it to each other when we wake up, when one of us leaves the house, when we are texting, when we are getting ready for bed at night. If for some reason something awful did happen, you’d always know that the last thing we said to each other was I love you.
THING ONE: Snuggling in for another hug.
I love you so much it hurts.

THING ONE: Hey mom?
MRSFATASS: Yep.
THING ONE: Now that Christmas is over, can I start telling you what I want for my birthday?
MRSFATASS: Absolutely.
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There have been so many moments this year. So many of our tribe members wrestling with these issues of love, of loss, of everything changing because of someone taking a final breath. And so many of these moments have brought out the best in people. So many of these crappy situations have taught us to live more authentically, laugh loudly, and to dance our way through because there is incredible beauty in pain. To avert your eyes is to miss out.
FitBloggin’ 15 is just 6 short months away. I again have the privilege of planning our Zumba dance party! This year I propose that we dance not only in celebration of that which is joyous, but that we dance to honor the painful times of our tribe. To lean on each other and lift each other up. To demonstrate what we mean when we say #tribelove.

You bring your thoughts and memories and touchstones. I’ll bring music, and once again assemble a group of friends to help me lead this special class. And we’ll take an hour to honor those we love and those we’ve lost, like only we can. Together.

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“Is it only for women?”

Every day, someone asks me that. We talked about it a lot before we opened, whether or not we would market exclusively to women. I was hesitant in the beginning, because while I was sure there would be people who would seek us out because of that, I wondered about the potential clients who would NOT come specifically BECAUSE of that.

Because, come on, let’s be serious. Women can be tough. We can be judgmental and even catty and sometimes when we are feeling insecure we inadvertently make somebody else feel even worse. And I was just concerned that if we sold to hard the “women only” message, we would lose the people who heard that and had flashbacks to some heartbreaking middle school mean girl scenario and I just didn’t want that to be part of the marketing plan.

So I voted to keep things coed.

As it turns out, 18 months later, we are mostly women. And it’s pretty amazing because somehow we were able to create the atmosphere we dreamed of before opening, where it would be judgment free and supportive and team-based. And lo and behold, after all of these months we are seeing these women form bonds that extend past the studio, past our races or our charity outings, past sweaty workout clothes and pony tails and into the rest of our lives. Friendships happen right before my eyes.

I’ve never been a particularly lonely person, and even though I can be entirely socially awkward, I’ve still managed to have very good friends in my life. And I say ‘lucky’ because while I have had people who were good to me, I haven’t always great at reciprocating. I get really focused on what’s in front of me, and forget to be thoughtful, to remember birthdays or anniversaries, or to be that thread that holds a friendship together. So I’ve been thankful to have people in my life who can forgive that, who will have those “pick up right where we left off” kind of friendships with me after I’ve fallen off the grid for a while.

I don’t know if it’s being in my forties now, or if it’s a result of my Positivity Pact of 2014, or if it’s the fact that I’m potentially pre-menopausal, but I have become very sentimental. Or maybe I already was sentimental and now I’m just more comfortable letting it show. That’s probably more truthful. I’m more comfortable with the unpretty, and I want to witness the hard stuff along with the laughs. And once again I realize I’m very lucky, because as this thing inside me shifts and I want friendships that are complex and messy and real, I look around and once again find myself surrounded.

2014 was the year I fell in love with the women in my life. At work I see them lifting each other up. High fives and honest, celebratory cheers. I see the new Facebook connections and how their faces start showing up in each other’s photos. I see them talking more and more in between classes and figuring out the six degrees that connect them and I hear them inviting even MORE friends to come to the studio. “I just KNOW she can do it”, “I just know she’d love it here but she’s nervous,” or “she needs to take some time for herself.”

And in my own personal life I am in love with the women who let me bring them dinner, who will celebrate their birthdays with me, who will come over without calling first and who will hang out in their yoga pants. I love how we don’t have to be embarrassed and can laugh both AT and WITH and how our husbands can have a good time together too. I’m in love with how we can be different but still find strong common bonds, how we can disagree but it doesn’t have to matter, how uninterested in perfection we all are but how we still challenge each other to do our best. I like knowing their mothers and their sisters and talking about buying a place together at the beach and having plans, like way out in the future, because we all know that we’re connected for always.

And I love my from-a distance friends. I love those women who I see once a year – or maybe not even – who still make me feel like a force in their lives, and I love the women who were once every day friends who are now like once every five year friends but it isn’t any different because while our faces or our hair or our geography may have changed, our hearts and our connections are still the same.

And I love the little girls who are our women in training.

2014 was my year of the woman. I’ve got my circle of them and I am going to hold on.

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Last January, all hopped up on BodyFlow breasts breaths and New Year’s clean-slatedness (look it up, it’s a word), I decided that my intention for 2014 was going to be POSITIVITY. I gave myself a nice, wide berth with this one, because after a few years of a lot of change, challenge, and even drama, I felt there were a lot of places in my soul and in my life that needed a fresh coat of paint.

Today I took some time to flip through my Facebook posts, and chose some of m favorite posts from the year. I love a good quote or an e-card. Maybe one or two will speak to you as well.GRATITUDE was a big part of my positivity journey this year. Ending my daily yoga or BodyFlow practice with a moment of gratitude, going around the dinner table with everyone naming one thing the are thankful for, resolving arguments between Thing One and Thing Two by having them write down one thing that makes them thankful to have the other as a sibling. It’s important to me to choose to have a grateful heart.
I decided to make it a daily practice to WITNESS AWESOMENESS. It’s easy to point out mistakes, complain about idiots, and generally just feel like the world is doing it wrong. This year I spent more time looking for opportunities to give a compliment and an ass slap a high five, and am amazed at how much shorter my list of peeves is now that I’m not always looking for them.

I learned to embrace my own SELF CONFIDENCE. Life is messy and shit is hard. You can feel victimized by life’s curveballs, or you can evolve. I choose the latter.

I gave up wishing for things to calm down. Life’s pressure is ever present. Instead of hiding from it or trying to wish it away, I ACCEPTED it and am letting it turn me into something strong and beautiful. And sparkly.

I’ve had my messy moments and my issues and my sadness and my time on The Floah, no doubt. But this year I let go of a lot, and have chosen to FEEL GOOD. At first I would ask myself “Who am I if I’m not being beaten to death by butterflies in my chest? If I’m not coming unglued about having to answer the phone or be social? Who am I if I’m actually losing weight and being healthy and am dareIsay happy with the state of my life?”

Turns out I’m still me. Just me without the crazy eyes frown.

Yoga and BodyFlow are a big part of why my positivity experiment worked. The whole world would be a happier place if everyone would take one hour every day (or every other day, or once a week, or just SOMETIME) to focus on their BREATHING and to connect their movement to that breath. Yoga has been a part of my life since I was seventeen years old; some years it is front and center, and some years it’s in the way back of my closet with the clothes I just can’t get rid of. This year was a front and center year and it’s been good.

I APPRECIATE the beauty and the wisdom and the experience of the women around me. There have been periods of my life when I wanted to go things alone, because let’s face it, women have kind of a bad rap when it comes to friendships. But this year, with my focus on putting positivity out in the universe, there have been knock-me-on-the-head moments showing me how it comes back – in the shape of amazing, strong, brilliant, beautiful, authentic, hilarious kick-ass women all around me.

Merry Christmas, everyone. See you in a shiny new 2015!

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December is always a contemplative month. For different reasons, with different overriding emotions, but it’s always a month that’s good for finding me staring off into space at some point, laying in a bathtub until the water is cold, taking a dog for a short walk that turns into miles, just lost in thought. This year isn’t any different.

This December, I’ve been thinking a lot about blessings.

On a personal level, I’ve been blessed in more ways than I could list, by family and friends that are like family and even by acquaintances or the occasional complete stranger who have been there to give me something when I needed it. When I couldn’t provide it for myself. Or when I could, but needed even more.

On a business level, we’ve been blessed with memberships that have turned into friendships, by people giving us second (third, fourth and fifth) chances, who have believed in us even in those moments when we didn’t believe in ourselves.

And overall, I have been blessed with as many opportunities to pay it forward, to give with no anticipation of it being a tradeoff, or in some pursuit of a future favor. I’ve been presented with opportunities to do positive things, just because.

This is the part of the post where I wanted to add a photo of me in college. All young and carefree and living in Chicago studying acting, thinking I had the whole world in the palm of my hand. A photo of a time before marriages and careers and babies, before breakups or divorces or children. Before mortgages and taxes and employment, before unemployment. A time before grey hair and wrinkles. A photo with an old friend named Eddy, who I studied with in acting school. We were occasional scene partners (Eddy, do you remember the improv we did in the morgue? Where Ric said End Scene just milliseconds before things took a really, uh, weird turn? No? Okay me either).

But I couldn’t find one of those, so instead I Facebook Stalked asked Eddy if I could use some of his. This year Eddy got married.

And they had a beautiful baby girl named Emma.

Emma has to have open heart surgery in January. And her mom and dad will need to provide a kind of around-the-clock care to help her heal afterward that many of us can’t even imagine. Or maybe by now we can, I don’t know. Maybe by now we all have had at least some kind of experience with a loved one who needed someone to be their advocate and their nurse and their parent and their friend and their caretaker all rolled into one. I know a little bit about that myself. And I know that when my infant daughter spent just 4 days in the hospital, how hard it was to send my husband to work each morning because he didn’t have any paid time off left. Those hours would have been much less scary had we been able to endure them together.

So Eddy and his wife Sarah are doing what they can to take time off together to help Emma heal, and have asked for help. And I’ve always believed that people want to do good in the world, but they don’t always know how. So here is one way. If you can donate even just $5 to this fund, it will help them be home with her. There will be no calls to the boss or stress about shifts or worry about all those things that happen as someone gets better after surgery. And I know that you probably don’t know Eddy, and I haven’t in a lot of years. But I don’t know that it matters. Because THOSE CHEEKS!

So if you’re able to help, this is how you can do so:

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I finally got my blog fixed. I finally got my blog fixed! And holy cow let me tell you it’s like getting to scratch that itch in the center of your back that is hard to reach. Not being able to search or read comments or have links work honestly made me not want to come and write at all. Of course Ryan found the problem and now she’s all shiny and new again. And with that, a brand new enthusiasm for coming here to tell you more stories.

I spent some time thumbing through archives now that it’s all working again. A big part of this blog has been about me figuring out my mental health. Depression and anxiety, well, they are no joke. And they are things that have been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. I didn’t really have a vocabulary for it in high school or college. I couldn’t really explain my intensity or my occasional paranoia or my insomnia or my moods. All I really knew is that there were times when I was acting in such a way that in my head I knew was completely irrational, but I just couldn’t make it stop. I called it stress, but I knew it had to be more than that, because it would send me reeling like a scaredy cat hanging from the ceiling by his claws and just not shut off.

And for whatever reason, whether it’s the calendar or the temperature or the (lack of) daylight, it always seems that this time of year would be the yucky part of the cycle. I found my Dr. Awesome in October. I “relapsed” and picked myself up off of the floah a year later in November. I have written all kinds of garden metaphors and melancholy reflections and I’ll start fresh next year stuff because usually throughout this time of year, I’m sort of faking my way through the B side of things.

But this year is different.

It’s been four years since I sat in a psychiatrist’s office for the first time, answering questions and being assessed, eventually walking out with an honest to god diagnosis for my wacky emotions and behaviors. I brought The Diagnosis home like a new puppy, playing with it and training it and also I had something to blame for chewed up socks or poop on the rug! (Metaphorically speaking of course). In some ways it was awesome to hear a doctor give me a diagnosis that put words to what I was feeling for so many years because I had a reason for it. There were chemicals in my brain making it next to impossible for me to handle certain stresses, fears, or suspense because it didn’t shut off like somebody else’s might. How amazing to know that really I wasn’t crazy, I just had an honest to god anxiety disorder!

But in other ways, the reason didn’t really matter. Whether or not I had a name for it, I still had to function. I still had to be able to answer the phone. I still had to be able to go to work or teach my classes or advocate for my children. A diagnosis isn’t a free pass. It’s not an excuse for bad behavior. It doesn’t mean I can act out all over my family or friends and not have to be accountable for it. It doesn’t mean I can just take my hands off the wheel and stop handling my obligations and hide away until the storm passes.

Last week I started feeling that familiar slow build. Some of it was stress – one thing that therapy helped me figure out was that even though anxiety is stressful, not all stress is anxiety – so some of what I was dealing with was just plain old stuff that any adult has to cope with. But there was a little feeling that took hold that made the butterflies beat my chest up all week. It started with this stupid thing that happened last weekend – kids tearing around the neighborhood in a car, stealing outdoor Christmas lights – and it snowballed into days of me freaking out that a car was going to hit my son when he crossed the street to go to his buddy’s house. Total fixation for days. And I just couldn’t flip the switch back to OFF. Little things became big things. A bump on my husband’s head was a brain tumor, my daughter’s tummy ache became the flu. And it all boiled over on Saturday when my already pumping adrenaline got turned up to eleven while trying to get my daughter to the float she was supposed to ride on at the Christmas parade. We were running late and not totally sure where to go and we had to run from one end of the parade route to the other, dodging throngs of people holding umbrellas (seriously, you could put an eye out!!) but we made it and she waved like a beauty queen and it was awesome. However, my adrenaline didn’t shut off like it should of once we got her there and all was well. I could hear my heart in my ears and my emotions were spilling over and my pulse was racing so hard I could see it in my temples. I was terrified but had no idea what I was terrified of and for just a very teeny split second I wondered if I was having a heart attack.

And then I kind of lost it all over one of my best friends. Like, in the part of the day I should have been relieved it all worked out, and laughing about all the craziness, I was heavy breathing and choking back tears and just trying to escape.

Yep. My little diagnosis puppy totally pooped in his crate.

But, after a little while, I caught my breath. And after a little while more, I was able to talk it out. Both to my reflection in the mirror (reminding me that all this was just a biological reaction to a perceived danger, and now it was over) and to Trophy Husband (saying pretty much the same thing out loud like a mantra). And very soon after, I was able to text that friend and apologize. I’m sorry. That was me, not you. Every anxiety button I have got pushed this morning. I’ve been fighting this off for days. I’m sorry it came out on you.

And we were all able to dust ourselves off and put the day back on the rails.

I like having a diagnosis because it’s kind of like a roadmap. I can find my way back from the crazy. And I also like that I’ve become the kind of person who can say I’m sorry. Dramatic moments can be just that. Moments. They don’t have to turn into actual drama.
Anyway, my diagnosis dog is 4 years old now and I think I’ve got him just about housebroken. And I’m feeling really good about that.

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I’ve been yammering here for about 5 years, give or take. This blog, which started out as a weight loss diary, has evolved. It’s incorporated my entire life’s journey, good, bad, and hemorrhoidal. It’s taken me places I never dreamed possible. I’ve been quoted, mentioned, reprinted, interviewed or featured in publications all over the country, and even in one very special magazine down under. I has allowed me to travel from one coast to the other to conferences and events and meetups. I’ve made friends and settled into a tribe of bloggers and writers who have become My People. When I typed my first words all those years ago, I had no idea these experiences and friendships were in store. None.

It’s a pretty awesome thing to have people.

Over the course of the five years this little old blog has gotten some bumps and bruises. What was once all shiny and new and full of bells and whistles is now full of creaks and groans and error messages that even the best site designers and hosting companies can’t seem to diagnose or treat. And the voice that was once commended for being raw and honest and occasionally hilarious has gotten quieter and quieter, because the hard part of having lots of people reading your stories means the other people involved in those stories might not like the way you tell them. And really? Getting old is kind of a bitch.

And there has been more than one time in the last year that I’ve considered just letting it go. Maybe MrsFatass has run its course. Maybe she has found her fabulous, and so the journey ends.

I have learned a lot of lessons writing here, lessons that have become my personal rules of storytelling. Things like, 1. Don’t be a jerk. I mean, we can all use our little slice of the internet any way we choose, but really, being a jerk isn’t cool and so even when you want to discuss something inflammatory or controversial, there are ways to do it that aren’t jerky on purpose. Remove names, stay on topic, and stick to the issues without adding a lot of personal insults. Stuff like that. And 2. Once you finish your piece, polish it up, and hit PUBLISH, that’s it. You’re done. It no longer belongs to you. You don’t get to control how people are going to inhale or digest it. They get to have all of their own interpretations. Whether it is received the way you intended, it’s out there and you have to just let it go.

The perspective I write from is my own. I’m not a journalist. I don’t owe anyone objectivity. I am a blogger who writes one side of any story. My side. That’s kind of the point. And by following my self-imposed rules from above, I’ve been able to rub more people right than wrong. And really, I’ve done here what all of us have done at one time or another; I’ve experienced something, and then run right to the people who I know are going to support me and told them/you all about it.

That’s not to say we are all always in agreement. But it does mean that I love you and you love me and there is no question that we will always and forever have each others backs.

I told a story here a couple of weeks ago. Those of you who worked your way around the error messages to find it eventually did what you always do for me. You had my back. Even to the people who didn’t love my use of the “mother card” understood or accepted why I played it here, because this is my story and my experience and I was reacting to what happened to my child. I love that discussions happened. Dialogue and debate is such an awesome thing and best of all it happened among people with mutual respect. There was no name calling. There was no “outing” of personal information. No threats, veiled or otherwise. And in (what I thought was) the end, your support for me was what it always is, beautiful and solid and overwhelming and true. And I appreciate you.

Telling stories here is like sitting around a big, crackling fireplace in sweatpants sipping Godiva liqueur with your best girlfriends. Because you laugh and you love and you disagree and you tease and you don’t all come together because you always see everything the same way. You come together because your bond is bigger and more meaningful than one individual opinion on one individual issue. Collectively, your bond is unbreakable.

So this morning I decided to go ahead and write what was in my heart, because that’s what I’ve always done here. And that’s what I will always do. My story, my journey, with my people.

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