Feeling good, looking... so-so.

This week has been an amazing week in running for me. I've put on my fancy cold weather gear, and headed out nearly ever night this week and have completed routes that have ranged from 5-7 miles. I've kept up with pace groups of cocky middle aged men, and have shown them that this gal, although not an 'athlete' so to speak, can hold her own when it comes down to hitting the pavement. Thursday was a great day as well. I ran six miles with the lone guy in an all girls running/yoga class, and was for the first time in my life called, 'fast'. So with all of this, I'm feeling good and carrying a head so large I can barely fit through the doorway. My insides tell me I'm an iron woman, but my outsides, well, they remind me that there are jiggles here and there that continue to make me look, well, less than the lean mean runner my sneakers tell me that I am.
Feeling this way leads me to the unavoidable fact: I am unhappy with my body. There, I said it. It seems that no matter how healthy I eat, and regardless of the many miles I run, I will never look like a Victorias Secret model. I hate the fact that I no matter how many crunches I do, my belly still has plenty to pinch. I hate that I can do leg presses till my legs feel like they are crumble, yet they will always resemble those of a flamingo. I hate that my butt goes from super flat, to kinda flat, and never comes close to resembling two canteloupes wrapped in a pair of chonies, regardless of the number of reverse ass blasters from Women's Health Magazine I do at the gym. With all of these disappointments, its a mystery why I even continue to dedicate so much time to working out and eating right at all.
I guess the reason why I torture myself with diet and exercise is due not to the fact that I am a woman and am genetically programmed to see a fat girl in the mirror, no, it is due to the fact that I am a former fat kid who hasn't fully come into her adult mindset. I am haunted by fears of going back to the plus sizes of the little girls department. After years of always being bigger than girls my same age, and being told over the years that it looks like I was 'finally losing my baby fat', its no wonder that I am a little concerned that I will be overweight once again.
This may seem like an irrational and silly way to look at myself because in reality, I know that I am not fat. In fact I fall within the range of what Shape Magazine says is the ideal weight for a woman of 5'7. But even though the magazine says I'm at a healthy weight, this obsessive gal doesn't want to be healthy, she wants to be skinny, and in order to be skinny, Ive still gotta drop a few more pounds. And so continues the never ending cycle. I joke that I'm a lot like Oprah, sometimes I'm skinny, sometimes I'm fat.... and if I'm really good, I'm super skinny, and the same holds true if I'm really bad, then I'm super fat. Ugh, curses to those who have awesome metabolism or that can endure an eating disorder, lucky bitches. I eat pizza twice a week, and the scale tells me I've gained two pounds. I'm engaged in a battle with my body that feels like I am born to lose.
But lets not get too concerned here. This blog is not a cry out for a body image intervention. In fact, the purpose is more so to proclaim that the inner fat kid in me is growing up. In the past week, I've impressed myself and others with the running skills that I almost never knew were there. Even though my body may not be as tiny Victoria Beckham's or Eva Longoria's, I am comforted by the fact that I could probably easily run a 10K with those bitches strapped to my back. I love the fact that I feel good. I love that my body feels like its being pushed to what I thought were the limits and sometimes even beyond. Slowly, I am coming around to wanting to become a picture of health, rather than a picture of Karen Carpenter. I am focused on improving my body in ways that will allow me to feel comfortable with calling myself a full fledged runner. With every run that I complete, I am becoming faster and stronger. My lungs feel like they have the holding capacity of air balloons, and as for those stick like legs of mine, well, lets just say, they are becoming a pretty damn solid after an hour out on the trails. Now, if you would excuse me, I just burned about 1,000 calories during a 10 mile run this morning, I think I'm going to get a goddamn slice of pizza, I've earned it.

Its the End of the year as we know it... and I feel fine.

Well, here it is again, the end of another year. Time to roll out the 'best of' lists, watch highlights of the biggest news stories that broke, and watch sappy montages of those celebrities that passed away, and scratch our heads and wonder, "when did Bernie Mac die"?. Yes, its that time of year again. For most of us, the end of another 365 day cycle marks the time where we actually sit back and reflect on our lives, as opposed to the other times of the year where we simply let our lives pile up into heaps of events and moments to rummage through right before that big ball drops at midnight. Personally, this year in review tends to be a time where I get overly sappy, sentimental, and analytical. Past December 31St's I would spend the remaining hours of the day looking back at the past 12 months dissecting the good, the bad, and the hilarious moments of my life. For some reason, and this may be due to my cynical nature, I would always walk away from the year with an incomplete feeling. The feeling that I could have done more. The feeling that with as much time that has passed, I could have grown more, or discovered something new about myself. You know, its all of the 'would have' and 'could have' talk that we do when we eulogize the end of a year. But today is different. My time of reflection is not full of all of those self loathing thoughts. Instead, the end of 2008 makes me feel, well as the title of this blog says, fine.


2008 was one of those years that I wont have to sift through the corners of my mind to find the memories that made it so great or even the memories that made it so shitty. Refer to any moment of the year, and I could probably tell you exactly where I was, what shirt I was wearing and maybe even what color my hair was when something happened. Whether it was by a song or a season, there were triggers all over the place that could map my mind to any memory throughout the year. The monumental ups and downs and even the less notable events of 2008 finally helped me to realize that just because another year has passed, it does not mean that I am somehow behind in this race of our lives that I have always felt like everyone was smoking me in. This was the year that I realized to say fuck it to just about everything. So what if I'm not on the same track as every other girl in Hesperia from the class of 2002. Living my life does not mean comparing it to those around me and those who I hear about every time I take a trip back to the desert. No, living life means just that, living. There's no rulebook for me to follow, nor is there a checklist of milestones I should be crossing off, and there are certainly no deadlines for the shit I should be accomplishing. My life is pretty damn awesome just the way it is. Who cares if I am more interested in spending my money on visiting developing countries, rather than investing in a 401k. What does it matter if I find nothing wrong with selling my plasma fluids for grocery money twice a week? And for the record, being 24 and single does not mean that I am doomed to be an old hag, shit you know what they say, 'the older the berry, the sweeter the juice!' I now feel that what the conclusion of another year really boils down to is that from January through December, with every day, week, or month that goes, I will be just dandy with the time that has passed and the person that I have become. Whether I am able to finally be more open and intimate, or if I simply add another 5 pounds to my ass, whatever the changes I undergo over the course of a year are fine by me. I figure that as long as I have done the things that I wanted to, whether they be impulsive or well thought out, loved the people I love to the fullest, and not commit scandalous deeds that I will wind up as a guest on Maury for, I will be content with myself regardless of what the date on the calendar says. So even though 2008 was one hell of a year, I think I'll bid it farewell with just a smile and wave goodbye instead of the usual nail in the coffin.