Pink Giraffe Musing

In February 2011, I started an incredible journey of health, fitness, strength, and smaller clothes sizes.  I know I said, and I'm pretty sure I wrote, that if I could get back to the way I looked at 18 that I'd never let it go.  I lied.  I got there.  I shocked myself, to be sure.  Actually, I think there was a window of time where I was more fit than I had ever been in my entire life.  I mean, I had muscles, real muscles.  Little ones, but you could see them.   In no time, I let it slip away.  Not entirely.  But, enough.  My pre-February 2011 pants would still fall of me, but at the start of this summer I was down to only one regular push up, and I hardly ever run anymore.  The physical strength I had worked so hard to gain was dwindling. In February of 2012, I was in the best physical condition of my adult life, which is a nice place to be at 41.  My kids were doing well, my husband had a job he loved, and was g...

In the first months after Michael passed away, I would try to go about my normal life and do my normal life things like go to Target or the grocery store.  I learned very quickly, that if I went in there on "auto-pilot" I would end up with things in my cart like men's deodorant or body wash that I didn't need anymore.   When I'd realize it was a mix of feeling upset, crazy, and a little mad at myself.  Like, "duh, Beth, figure it out".  After a few such trips to the store, I began the process I now think of as "re-training my brain".   Instead of wandering through a store, I started walking through stores purposefully.  I remember very vividly being at Target one day before a trip to Florida.  I kept saying things to myself (not out loud) like , boys flips flops yes, girls flips flops yes, women's flip flops yes, men's flips flops no we don't need those.  I would do the same thing at the grocery store, because there were several...

        A sucker punch is defined as, "an unexpected punch of blow".  That is exactly what happened to my family last night. By all rights we had a great day.  Just regular really.  I worked out, and we all sort of chilled.  We read, and  played , did the things  children  and teachers  should  do in the  summertime.  And then………. And then we went to see How to Train Your Dragon 2.   Oddly enough, I was the one who wanted to see it the most.  The truth is I kind of begged them to go.  I love the animation.  I loved the first movie.  It was a happy time.  Everyone seemed upbeat.  We went to the theater, like a normal day, and encountered a sweet autistic boy.  My son befriended him over popcorn and icee's and I was feeling rather grand.  The boy's mom even thanked David for being so kind to her son who didn't understand "personal spac...

I did a lot of thinking this morning on the way in to work today.  It's amazing how a 20 minute drive can be filled with such a flurry of thoughts, or some mindless morning talk radio.  Today is my last day of work for this school year.  It's two years now that I have worked here.  Two years since a fragile, new widow walked through the door of this place.  I remember walking in, tears stinging my eyes, thinking these people will never know me as "Michael's wife".  It was profound to me; meeting 60 people at once, and so soon after, who only knew me as a widow.  It has been two years that I have known these co-workers, many of whom I now call friend.  Two years.  I think the woman who walked through those doors is in many ways the same woman I have always been and yet simultaneously a completely different person. Looking back, I think I was just functioning in those early days.  Putting one foot in front of the other, as people te...

I have learned a lot of things in the last 20 months.  One thing is that I am hard on myself.  I saw a counselor for a while and she often told me, "Beth, be easy with yourself".  Apparently, this is not something that comes easily to me.  I hold myself to a high standard.  Always.  I demand a lot from myself, and I don't accept a lot of excuses.  It is why I am who I am.  But, it's not easy being me.  Sometimes I think I would like to do things halfway, or "just get by", but I can't.  I just can't.  I can't quite even imagine what that would look like, especially with regards to my work, or my kids. And while I sometimes feel like a broken mess,  I have to admit, there are still a lot of wonderful things about my life.  My kids are doing well.  They are mostly happy.  They have sad times, and probably always will.  But, they are growing and thriving.  They aren't depressed or failing out of scho...

In widow circles, there is much discussion of the second and subsequent years after the loss of a spouse in terms of difficulty, stress, and emotion.  Thoughts and opinions vary widely, as grief and our reaction to it is unpredictable and highly personal.  We are all just taking it as it comes.  These are my thoughts on the topic. In some ways the second year is easier.  The firsts are over.  Everyone has had their birthday, and we have lived through each holiday without him here.  The new normal starts to feel actually normal.  There are still days I get angry that the new normal even exists, but, I have come to a place of acceptance.  And most days, I don't try to fight reality anymore.  It is what it is.  I may not have picked this life but it's not like I can quit now because "life is for the living", as Michael's friend so wisely told me.  The children have shifted into their new roles of greater independence and self-suffici...

When I was a kid in school, I was a walker.  Out of my K-12 career, I walked all but two years.  As a child I didn't always love it.  But as an adult, I look back on it with great fondness.  I remember anticipating that 3:30 bell and practically flying from the school when it sounded.  I would run up the gravelly hill, with my gold and blue Hilton Wildcat tote bag, catching up with friends along the way.  It is such a feeling of freedom....joy...... pure bliss.  I remember it vividly.  I can picture the cracks in the side walk and the acorns we had smashed along the way the previous day.  Frequently, I took off my shoes and walked home barefoot, much to my mother's chagrin. As with most things, the rules have changed, and the walkers at my school are not given the same freedom, or opportunity for youthful zeal at the end of a school day as I had "back in the day".  For this reason, it came to be that I wal...