Choices

I actually hate this stock photo.  But I'll get to that in a second...

Choice is a beautiful, terrifying thing.  I'm able to say that it's terrifying because it's something I, as a white, straight, cisgender, American, educated woman, am able to take for granted.  A LOT.  Not to get political on you, but holy shit, I have some serious privilege and associated guilt.  Given the state of the world, I guess I'd rather have the guilt than not have the privilege, and it's crap to have to think that way.

Moving on...

Some of the choices we have to make are easy.  Do I go to work today or stay in my sweatpants watching Netflix?  Well, unless you are ill or have agoraphobia, you will probably make the decision to go to work.  Unless you don't like gainful employment, of course (no judgement).

Some are more difficult.  Where will I go to college?  What do I want to be when I "grow up?"  Do I want children?  If so, how many?  Who will I vote for (this may be easy or difficult depending on who's running)?

Some choices should be easy, but can challenge us (me) sometimes (a lot).

Will I eat this candy or won't I?
Will I work out today, or will I stay in my sweatpants watching Netflix (I like Netflix, ok?)?
Will I have all of the garlic naan ever made when I go out to dinner with my BFF?
Will I have a glass of water, or will I have a third latte?

The struggle is real, y'all.

There is a reason I get annoyed (somewhat secretly, but I'm not THAT good at hiding it) when people say they "slipped up" on their healthy eating and exercise is because it's not a slip up.  It's not an accident.  Nobody hog-tied you and forced you to eat Doritos all day (I hope).  You didn't lose your footing and fall mouth first into a pan of brownies.  The gym didn't secretly pack up and move to a different part of town without telling you.

It's not a slip up.  It's not a mistake.  It's a choice.  You may not even realize it.

I recently read an article (and no, I won't cite it, because I can't even remember where/when exactly I saw it) that said "discipline is prioritizing what you want most of all over what you want right now."  Truer words have never been spoken.  It doesn't just apply to health and fitness, it applies to everything we do.

I couldn't find the original quote, but this is close enough.  You get the idea.  Also, don't tell me what to do, Silhouette Person.  You don't know my life!

I've written about priorities before.  I'll probably write about priorities again, because it's something I constantly have to remind myself of.  I have several priorities in my life that are constantly competing for the top position.  Work, school, my marriage, my friends, my family, Taco, home maintenance, my health.

For the first time in a long time, my health usually wins the top spot.  Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, for example, I wake up at 5am absolutely frickin exhausted.  The night before, school was my priority and I stayed up studying until midnight.  Today, as much as I would like for my personal health to be the priority and go back to bed to rest, work needs to win because I'm scheduled to be in at 6 and SURPRISE, adulthood is no fun sometimes!

Today, I probably should have worked out, but I prioritized my friends and social relationships and went out to lunch instead.

Do I feel badly about it?  Meh, tomorrow's a new day, the gym will still be there.  And it's a choice I made.  Consciously.  Deliberately.  They did not kidnap me and take me to Basil Cafe (although truthfully, I would LOVE that).  There's no excuse, there's just what happened.  The choice I made.  And it was worth it.

I also don't like to think of it as "good choices" and "bad choices."  Maybe "better choices" and "not as great" choices?  I don't know how to phrase it.  But I feel like calling it a bad choice shames us for what we do.  And I am not hopping on that train.  Are our less than spectacular choices what define us?  NO.  So why do we shame ourselves for them?

You can choose to spend your time excusing your "slip ups" or "cheating" or "mistakes" on your fitness journey.  But I can almost guarantee, you will begin to feel badly about them.

What I've chosen to do is to own my choices, without apologies or excuses.  For me, this is the best (only) way to forward movement, progress, and growth.  It gives me the freedom to do what I want with the pride I feel whenever I make a choice that improves my life.

Vacation! Subtitle: I am AWESOME.

I just got back from a frickin amazeballs family vacation.  Myself, the hubs, and my mom and pops flew out to Phoenix last week and then met my sibs in Flagstaff.

We stayed in a sweet rental house (thanks, Ma and Pa) and hiked all over God's green earth.


We saw First People's homes built into the sides of cliffs.



We hiked the Grand Canyon.

We hiked for MILES around Sedona.

We went to a weird little town called Jerome, built into the side of a mountain.

We explored Phoenix and Flagstaff.

We sat in a hot tub for hours.

We got up and drove two hours to see an amazing sunrise.

We saw tons of elk so close to us we could have touched them (if it weren't for fleas and early mating-season aggression, that is).

I got to see my college roomie and fetus friend and her husband, and meet their sweet daughter Aida.

I ate fajitas pretty much every day.

I had amazing tequila (sorry not sorry, Amanda and Donovan).




But let's talk about the best parts.

It started with me sitting in an airplane seat comfortably.  My ass fit and everything.  It was a spring break miracle.
And then.  AND THEN!  I buckled my airplane seatbelt.  Without.  A.  Seatbelt.  Extender.  For the first time since before I met my husband.
Then, I put the tray table down and it didn't smack my boobs or my food baby on the way down.
And then I hiked for miles and miles up and down and around a mountain in Sedona and kept up with my family.
And then I hiked straight down into a gorge and back out.
And then I hiked around the Grand Canyon rim.

And then I hiked into the Grand Canyon (not all the way to the bottom, I don't have a death wish) to see a fossil wall and back out.
And then I comfortably sat in yet another airplane seat, buckled yet another airplane seatbelt without an extender, and used another tray table without my boobs or food baby getting in the way.

While tramping all over AZ, I thought a lot about the last vacation I took, when my husband, my bestie and I drove to Montana to meet my siblings.  It was gorgeous and amazing, and I missed out on parts of it because I had no stamina, no energy, and was unbelievably out of shape.  Instead of dwelling on that and feeling sad, I was (am) overjoyed that's no longer the case.  I can do the things I want to (most of them, anyway) and don't have to miss out on anything I want to do because of my fitness, or lack thereof.

Amazing how much can change in just under a year, huh?

I get it, you're "too busy"

Seriously, y'all.  I am exhausted.  ALLLLLLL the time.  Too much on my plate.  Burning the candle at both ends.  Full-time employee.  Full-time student.  Full-time wife.  Full-time mom (yes, my dog counts, shut up). Full-time ass kicker.  6 days a week in the gym.


 And I swear to God and sonny Jesus, if one more parent says to me "You think you're busy?  Just wait until you have kids, then you'll REALLY know what busy is!" I'm going to punch them in the throat.  Yes, I am aware that kids are quite the time suck.  Yes, I am aware that being a mom is "the most important job in the world" (thanks for invalidating my life, BTW...in spite of my fruitless uterus, I am aware that mothers are important).  You chose to have children, and I'm sure it's been an excellent choice for you, just as I am choosing the priorities in my life, and they are fantastic.  Guess what isn't on my list of priorities, ever, at all.  Lectures from sanctimommies.  SEACREST OUT.  RANT OVER.  MIC DROP.


But I digress.


What can I say, I like to be busy.

I try not to glorify it, because I don't always feel like it's the healthiest.  Certainly my stress level is nothing to envy.

What's the point?

Throughout my entire adulthood, I've felt this busy all the time.  But I really haven't been.

Working on my undergrad degree at UWSP, I felt SO STRESSED.  Trying to graduate with a decent GPA while working 15 whole hours a week and working out 3x weekly was quite the task.  How would I EVER be able to do that?
Quick math: 15 credit hours of class per week + 15 (ish) hours of work + 3 hours of working out = 33 hours of committed time each week.  This means I had 135 hours of free time.  135 mother effing hours to sleep, and study, and eat, and hang out with my friends.  135 glorious hours.  Every.  Dang.  Week!
Not sure why I felt so busy when I spent most of the free-time I didn't think I had hitting the bong and drinking gin (note to all, especially co-workers and my trainer: I NO LONGER HIT THE BONG.  Please don't judge me.  My early 20's were spent in a marijuana-clouded stupor, but I really like my nursing license so that shit was cut from the roster).

When I moved to the Marshall Islands was probably the only time in my adult life when I haven't felt stressed by responsibilities.  My responsibilities there included: 1) show up to teach, 2) try to be on time, but if you're not, nobody really cares, 3) have something planned for the kids to do, 4) don't show the kids your knees, EVER, or they will think you're a prostitute, 5) have a pulse, 6) try not to die of dysentery.  It was pretty awesome.

Flash to nursing school: 12 credit hours of class per week + 16 hours of clinicals + 24 hours of work = 52 hours of committed time.  Even during nursing school, which every nurse who ever lived will tell you is the worst thing ever, I had 116 hours of unaccounted time each week.  I can tell you why I felt so busy with so much "free time," it all boils down to nursing care plans and memorizing medications.  Blerg.

Fast forward to now.

12 credit hours per week + 32 work hours per week = 44 hours of committed time each week.  (Truthfully, I have 50 committed hours, because I count my gym time as a commitment, not "free time.") I have 124 hours to sleep, cook, play with my dog, study, hang out with my husband, work out, etc.  I feel insanely busy, because again...I spend the majority of this free time studying.

But here's the point...

Everybody is given the exact same 24 hours per day to spend how they choose.

Nobody is guaranteed how many of these 24 hour periods they will get.

You can choose how to spend your days.

If you want to spend them laying on your couch watching Knight Rider re-runs, no judgement.  That actually sounds pretty awesome.  If you choose to spend them reading Hyperbole and a Half and screening your phone calls, invite me over.  If you choose to spend your "free time" asleep, with your kids, macrame-ing yourself a pair of jean shorts, cosplaying Twilight, teaching your dog to fetch your slippers, streaking down College Avenue, smoking crack, protesting, setting fireworks off at inappropriate times, or any other frickin weird hobby you may have, that's your prerogative.

"We're going streaking!  Through the quad, into the gymnasium!  You come too...bring your green hat!"
*NOTE: if this is your hobby, you are hilarious and I want to be best friends with you.  One of my best friends used to like to streak and flash back in our college days, and she is my favorite.  You could be my favorite, too (just saying)*

But I don't want to hear that you're "too busy" to work out or cook yourself healthy meals.

Guess what.
You're not.
You're just choosing to spend your time differently.

And that's fine.  Like I said, it's your life and you have every right to spend it however you want.  I am just growing weary of parents, students, newlyweds, business-owners, and people from pretty much all walks of life telling me they are "too busy" to make their health a priority.  That is straight-up bullshit.

Saying you are "too busy" is a weak excuse which will not be tolerated.  So if you use that excuse with me, be prepared to be called out on it.*

*Unless you are a single parent of 8 who works 90 hours a week and manages a menagerie of 35 pets by yourself while juggling chainsaws and simultaneously recovering from major abdominal surgery. Then you probably don't have time.  Everyone else though...