Acceptance

I am well aware of the fact that there is not one person on the face of the earth who doesn't have a "flaw" (or several, for that matter). I am very aware of my own flaws. I have many. Some of them bring me down when I think about them, and some of them drive me to be better.

I think one of my more significant "flaws" is my inability to find peace and acceptance in myself. It's part of the reason I initially started this blog. To try and figure out why I have this inner voice who frequently screams out "you're not good enough" or "you can do better, be better...".

Now, this inner voice has at times proven to be a good thing for me (in my opinion). It drove me to get a Master's degree, to find better and better paying jobs, to be the best wife I know how to be, and to lose 20 lb's and get involved in the fitness industry.

Now, I realize we're not talking about a HUGE weight loss, and it's not like I'm a body builder, but I can say that right before I got pregnant, I felt the best about myself (physically) as I probably have at any other time in my life. Where am I going with this?

I spend a great deal of time right now reading child rearing books - but really what I want to learn the most before this baby is born is how to find acceptance in myself, flaws and all. I don't want to hate the way I look right now (despite the facts that SO many people have told me how good I look) to be okay with the fact that despite all my best efforts, my butt is bigger, and legs now have more cellulite, and that when this baby is born, I'm not going to be able to immediatley fit right into the jeans I was wearing during Christmas.

I feel like if I can find acceptance and tolerance in my physical self, maybe I will find acceptance in my ability to be a mother, and the fact that I cannot be a perfect mother. Hell, right now I'm not really worried about being a perfect mother, I will settle for just being a good mother.

More importnatly, my hope is that if I can find an ability to be accepting of myself, maybe I will also find the ability to not be so selfish. I know I should be spending my time thinking about how I am going to fit my life around this baby...but instead I find myself thinking more about how quickly I can get back to teaching at the gym, or how I can find time to go out for a run if I'm breastfeeding.

At least I know my daughter won't care about the size of my ass.

"Pool Etiquette"

So I had an interesting experience tonight. Lately I have been swimming laps at a local gym (not mine) because swimming laps is about one of the last exercise-y things I can do and NOT feel pregnant. My body appreciates the non-weight bearing movement as well.

So the pool I went to had 2 lanes roped off for lap swimmers and the rest was open for family swim and lessons. Well, one lane had a guy swimming laps who looked to be fairly knowledgeable and able and the other lady had an older, bigger lady, who looked to be having more of a "refreshing dip" than a workout. I figured I would join the lady because I would rather dodge someone than have someone dodging me.

I entered the pool right as she was making her turn, and waited for her to turn at the end of the lane before I started my warm-up lap. Customary approach - or so I thought.

Now..I'm no Michael Phelps...but I can do a decent crawl stroke, stay in my half of the lane and pretty much hold my own in a pool (thank you 1 year of swim team and 3 years of lifeguarding). Well, on my way down the lane, I was doing breast stroke and the other lady was doing the crawl (so keep in mind we were coming at each other face first - she wasn't doing backstroke) and I pass her right about half way and out of no where she pops up out of the water and yells at me "Jesus!...Don't you know you are supposed to ask if you can share a lane?"

Um...excuse me?

I have to say I was a little shocked. I stopped, looked at her and replied "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you saw me get into the lane. My apologies".

So I make the turn at the end of the lane and as I'm approaching the end I started at, I see her get out of the water, collect her kick board, and shoot me a nasty glare (still doing head up breast stroke at this point) and start to walk off.

I apologized again...and while I felt bad for startling her, I was grateful to no longer have to be sharing the lane with someone who obviously wasn't there to get her heart rate up.

So she goes into the locker room and comes back out a couple minutes later. She's changed her swim cap from a lavendar latex flavor to a blue flower print spandex one (apparently you can't share a lane with someone else unless you are wearing the proper type of swim cap). So I'm still doing my laps, minding my business, and she gets back in the pool, in my lane, and proceeds to start doing back stroke.

And she didn't ask my permission to share my lane. I thought we just went through this.

So we are able to ambically share a lane for about 10 minutes, both of us going down and back (as opposed to a circle) and then she got out for good. WHATEVER!

So my question is - are you really supposed to ask "permission" to share a lane at a gyms pool? I mean, I'll say I was wrong if I was wrong, but I don't know. What if she hadn't stop to acknowledge my presence? Do I just wait until she does..or do I stop her and ask? Or what if she had told me "No."?

Regardless...I might have been rude by not asking permission to share "her" lane..but come one..was it really so bad you had to yell at me in the middle of the pool? I mean, I know I'm pregnant and all, but I'm pretty sure I still fit pretty easily in half the lane...and as long as we both can swim in a straight line we should be able to both use the lane and get along. Maybe that was her problem - maybe she couldn't swim in a straight line.

My quest to become a better blogger

I was looking back on my blog history for this year to find that I have posted a whopping 1 blog a month. Pretty sad. Now that I am done with school, I vow to become a better blogger. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I have more interesting stuff to write about as well.

June flew by. During that month I started my third trimester, and celebrated 4 years of marriage. I'm not sure which one brought me more happiness. It's hard to believe we've been married 4 years. Doesn't seem like it's been that long. I guess that is a good thing. I often wonder how a baby will change our marriage. I recently finished a book titled "After the Baby" all about how the introduction of a child completley changes some marriages. The intent of the book was not to scare people off from having children, but it more of an educational book about what to expect. After reading this book, I am even more appreciative that Sherman and I are a little older entering parenthood. I think that being a little older, we are better equipped to handle the stress about to head our way. Honestly, I'm not worried much about the first 4 months. I think we will do well while I am at home. I am worried more about what it will be like once I go back to work. The one place where Sherman and I have never done real well is with total dependence on each other to make something work. Now, that probably sounds weird, but both him and I are very independent people who are capable of handling most anything on our own. It's not to say we don't totally enjoy being married...but it took us almost 2 years of marriage to establish a "joint" checking account. I'm sure some of you will think that is absolutley nuts...but it's worked for us.

So now we are going to be forced to lean on each other, and figure out how to be a cohesive team. There will need to be sacrifice from both of us, and yet also time to learn and grow.

I promise to try and be a better posted about how we are learning and growing. Oh ya, and also on how the baby is doing. :)