Happy Birthday Dad and America

Last Friday I went to the gym for the first time. I have to say it was very UNPLEASANT working out in a mask. I was sweating, couldn’t breathe and concerned every time I pulled my mask up to breathe or take a sip of water that I would get yelled at.

Then, my sister sent me a graph of where it’s worse to get COVID – the gym is one of the worst places. Since I am staying with my 90 year old mother, I decided to just keep working out at home. A friend told me about some equipment I could get that would take the place of the heavy weights and machines I was missing by not going to the gym.

Yesterday I bought some “training cables” to work out with. I was in the zone, using them, feeling my back muscles, imagining the muscles I was building and pleased with myself. Then I put them around my feet to do my lower back. I pulled as hard as I could. WHACK. The hard plastic handles hit me at full force right in the mouth.

“What an ass hole I am,” I thought.

A light bulb went off. I’ve been proving that I’m an ass hole.

“Why?” I wondered. “I guess so I can be right about that there’s something wrong with me.”

And nothing’s wrong, really, besides the usual COVID, mom, children, money, weight concerns that are always ready to torture me at any moment.

I turned around in my mother’s family room. I saw my dad’s happy, smiling face in the photo on the piano.

“What a great photo,” I thought, and burst into tears. Today my dad would have been 96 years old. Happy Birthday Dad. We used to always have a party for him on July 4th. He loved being the center of attention.

“Dad, I miss you. It’s not the same without you. DADDEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

I had a great convulsing cry for about 5 seconds and then I was done. (By the way, I never called him Daddy so I don’t know where that came from).

I guess it’s easier to feel like an ass hole than to realize that my dad is gone forever and my mother is getting worse. By allowing myself to cry, I got present and now I am able to create my life instead of listening to my brain prove how stupid I am.

So, onward and upward. Yesterday I hired someone to help me launch my getting real with Hilary movement. I can use her expertise to answer the questions that I haven’t known the answers to.

It is a step in a positive direction, building a team, and letting someone else with experience do the parts that I don’t know or want to do.

Progress, folks.

Gotta get back to work. Have a great day.

Thanks for listening.

Here’s the video where I talk more about “Being an Ass Hole” in case you are bored. Thumbnail will be developed later: