This Temple

I can't sleep because I'm pretty sure I have a kidney stone. The fact the sentence even sprung forth from me is mind blowing because those are things older people get. It's hard to consider yourself "older" not that I'm clinging to my youth because I was glad to be young when I was and I think it's rather a bad time to be young right now, but it's like there are people in their teens and twenties... and then there's everyone else. And I'm just everyone else now. Sort of overlooked for something else new and shiny.

So the reason why I'm venting a little frustration now is because it's just not fair what happens to your body when you're old enough to treat it properly. When I think back to all of the abuse I put my own body through for the first 29 years of life I'm baffled. And now that I truly understand how sacred a place my body should be, it's all falling apart on me, I've got sand in the pipes.

My body has had it tough. I started drinking hard liquor when I was 9 and was smoking at 12. When I was 16 I went to school, had extracurricular activities, dancing school, and I worked 2 jobs and I stayed awake with diet pills and went to sleep with Nyquil and I never wore a seat belt. By 18 I was working for the city of Medford as a subcontractor in the forestry department. I worked with men: I chain smoked, and drank, played poker, and wielded a chainsaw with little regard for my face, neck, and kneecaps and I got into bar fights. In college, I slept 4 or 5 hours a night, drank boys under the table, continued to smoke, went tanning once a week, smoked a ton of weed, ate Mexican food, drank diet coke with wild abandon, and kissed random girls who's mouths I would have had no idea where they had been, and I never went for a physical or to the gym, or carried antibacterial hand sanitizer around with me. But despite all of this, I looked good.

And then I got pregnant. The funny thing that fetuses do to you is force you to take proper care of yourself. Make no mistake, they come into this world with an agenda. Of course I immediately stopped smoking and drinking and tanning. But after I stopped breastfeeding I picked that right back up, although I switched to smoking cloves instead of cigarettes because I thought they were better for me (and because they smell like Christmas). However, as my baby got older, I got bigger. I got bigger although I was considering my own health more than I had in the past. I ate spinach, went to the gym, and didn't have the disposable income to drink respectable champagne anymore. No one would really say anything outright to me, but I saw it in their faces. That look of surprise followed by pity followed by me imagining punching them in their throats. I was doing what I was supposed to. I was, by all means, healthy.

Or so I thought. When I became pregnant with my second child, Laney, I gained 30 something pounds right away, and when she was born, it all stayed. I pretended it didn't. But then there are pictures of me at the Children's Museum and Canobie Lake and when I look at them, I am like, 'Who's that!?' So I did some creative cropping of those pictures, and tried not to think about it. I definitely tried not to think about it when trying to put on jeans. I had to dance, you know to get in them. Kinda like Elvis meets crumping. Yes, I was in denial. It wasn't until I had a physical and my doctor told me that my cholesterol was up in the 230's, which is really bad. She told me that I'd have to go on a prescription if the numbers didn't come down and that I would die and my children would grow up without a mother. And I thought, 'Who's gonna braid Laney's hair?' And I started imagining John tying to make pigtails and the horror show that would look like. I downloaded the Loose It app straight way. Loose It is a pain in the ass. You have to account for all of your food intake and all of your exercise. There were times when I wouldn't eat something just to avoid having to look it up in the index, or there were times when I'd want to stop exercising but thought, 'ugh, if I only go ten more minutes I can completely burn off that Blondie I ate.' I did this for 6 months and lost over 40 pounds, which makes me lighter now than I was before I was pregnant with Laney. Also, I rarely drink, don't tan, cigarette smoke makes me wanna puke, I make my own healthy Mexican food, and don't put my mouth on strange girls (usually). I do sneak some diet coke every now and then.

At 30 I'm knowledgeable of my own demise, which makes me extra careful in my choices pertaining to my health. I bust my ass trying not bust out of my pants. But it's not fair. It's not fair that the young carefree Andi got to do whatever she wanted and looked good (looked great) but the older wiser Andi who takes care of herself struggles. I struggle. It's about appearance, but also, I don't wanna die and leave my kids to the mismanagement of their father. Oh, yes, he will love them and take care of them. But when he dresses them it looks like a blind person from Mars dressed them. I can't have that.

So yeah, I struggle, and part of my struggle is my mental well being and that for me is to accept myself for who and what I am right now. I'm not that 19 year old girl in the thong bikini getting out of the Lexus on Revere Beach. But I am 30 year old woman, comfortable being naked in her bedroom with minimal lighting. Sure months of nursing my kids have left my breasts a shadows of what they once were in their hayday, my stomach is soft, my knees crack and my back aches. I have laugh lines on my face and find silvery hairs in my eyebrows. I have a two pack. Do you know what that is? Where there once was a six pack, now there are but two. I don't have time to find the other four and I'm too impatient for pilates and yoga. So I accept. Don't get me wrong, should the six pack fairy visit me in the night I wouldn't complain. But for now. I'm happy with what I got.