Waxing and Waning
When my twin boys were three, without any thought or planning at all, I began an exercise regimen which started with this thought: I wonder if I can exercise every day for a week? Then, after the week ended, I thought, I wonder if I'll see any changes if I exercise every day for six weeks? Then, after six weeks, I decided to exercise for one hundred days in a row. When it was all said and done, I exercised every day for a whole year. And then I got pneumonia.
All this to say that since then, nine years ago, I have never managed to get into an exercise groove again. Never. Soon after my exercise streak, I became pregnant. When that baby turned three, I joined the YMCA and started exercising again . . . only to become pregnant again. And I'm infertile, so what kind of craziness is this? Two pregnancies when the doctors said it was "unlikely" to ever happen even once? Just when I think I have my life ordered neatly on a shelf, someone bumps into me and everything falls in a heap on the floor and I have to start from scratch.
It turns out that life is less like an Dewey-Decimal-ed stack of books and more like a sheaf of mismatched papers, collected piece by piece, with scrawled messages penned by dozens of writers with an assortment of pens. And those pages keep falling to the floor when they aren't shuffled together in a messy pile, an untidy work in progress with an unknown denouement.
The moon is a perfect circle tonight, but tomorrow? No. The tide recedes, but not for long. The milk jug is full, but soon will sit empty (and still inside the fridge because I have boys). Everything done will come undone and nothing will ever be the same again.
Why does that thrill me and depress me?
(And will I ever get into a satisfying rhythm of exercising again?)
All this to say that since then, nine years ago, I have never managed to get into an exercise groove again. Never. Soon after my exercise streak, I became pregnant. When that baby turned three, I joined the YMCA and started exercising again . . . only to become pregnant again. And I'm infertile, so what kind of craziness is this? Two pregnancies when the doctors said it was "unlikely" to ever happen even once? Just when I think I have my life ordered neatly on a shelf, someone bumps into me and everything falls in a heap on the floor and I have to start from scratch.
It turns out that life is less like an Dewey-Decimal-ed stack of books and more like a sheaf of mismatched papers, collected piece by piece, with scrawled messages penned by dozens of writers with an assortment of pens. And those pages keep falling to the floor when they aren't shuffled together in a messy pile, an untidy work in progress with an unknown denouement.
The moon is a perfect circle tonight, but tomorrow? No. The tide recedes, but not for long. The milk jug is full, but soon will sit empty (and still inside the fridge because I have boys). Everything done will come undone and nothing will ever be the same again.
Why does that thrill me and depress me?
(And will I ever get into a satisfying rhythm of exercising again?)
posted by Melodee at Wednesday, November 16, 2005
4 Comments:
I don't know as if I would try exercising again...I mean if you get pregnant each time....
I too battled infertility and when I asked my 4yo what I was going to do all day when he went to pre-k, he told me I was going to grow a baby in my belly....he was right. She's now 3 months old....earlier this week he told me I had another baby in my tummy.....soooo NOT funny! And I thought that the trick for us was to start tossing the idea of adoption around (worked 3 times--well two had help w/fertility meds though).
I so understand that post. And I cannot get into the exercise groove after this last baby...How am I going to lose this weight?
But then if I did, something would happen, like you say, and I'd get knocked up again somehow:)
Exercise is the least of my worries. If I could just get life-in-general in some sort of groove, I'd be happy.
Right now its just, "I wonder what level of total chaos today will bring!"
Besides the toilet seat comments,the milk jug comments come next in line. I buy a gallon a day and there is still never any milk.
And the exercise, I actually read fitness magazines for fun. I buy them with some fantasy that I will actually do the exercises contained within-that this time, my inner athlete will arise. Here's to hoping, eh?
Seriously though, it really does make me feel sooooo much better. Last winter I swam laps 45 minutes, 5 days a week and I'm bound and determined to get back in the groove.
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