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‘I get by with a little help’ Category

  1. Silly Songs About Love

    February 13, 2012 by Marissa

    So, Valentine’s Day is tomor­row. I’m tap­pity tap tap­ping this out on Mon­day the 13th. For any­one who knows me per­son­ally or sim­ply via the inter­net, you are fully aware Cupid hasn’t had the best aim in regards to moi. The last “rela­tion­ship” I had was doomed from the start. The word rela­tion­ship is in quotes because it was far from being a full-fledged com­bi­na­tion plat­ter of boy meets girl; boy asks girl to be his one and only. It was clear after a cou­ple of dates that he was too imma­ture to real­ize that devo­tion doesn’t begin with the part­ing of the legs. See ya, losah!

    I’m not really turned off of the con­cept of love and all the shmoopy-face stuff that usu­ally comes with being in a rela­tion­ship. That snarl and turned up nose look you see when some­one men­tions Valentine’s Day is just part of my middle-aged, bit­ter hag schtick.

    The songs you see on this post today are ones that popped into my head, and for some rea­son or other, hold sig­nif­i­cance in my life.  For instance, when the first tune, Old Fash­ioned Love Song, was pop­u­lar on the radio I thought it was David Cas­sidy.  Remem­ber kids, videos were not around. We had to wait for a band to appear on a vari­ety show to see them … or go to a con­cert. I was all of 10 years old. That wasn’t happening.

    This song is just fan­tas­tic, isn’t it? I first saw the Defranco Fam­ily on Amer­i­can Band­stand. My sis­ter Mary had the 45. If you’re too young to know what that is, Google it. Back to the song. It encom­passes all the ooey gooey feel­ings when infat­u­a­tion first strikes. It’s fab­u­lous. I mean, that is what I have heard about falling in love.

    Let’s bring it to the ‘80s, shall we? This song was pop­u­lar dur­ing a period of time when I attended Kanka­kee Com­mu­nity Col­lege. There was a guy with great biceps and hap­pened to be much taller than I. He had a way of walk­ing that made it appear he was on one of those mov­ing side­walks in the air­port. Lit­er­ally, his gait was smooth. It fas­ci­nated me. Well, being too young for the bar scene and liv­ing in a town that offered very lit­tle for teens, we would cruise the square in search of thrills. It was rare for us to ever stop. We’d just ‘woot woot’ out our car win­dows and keep mov­ing. Per­son­ally, I was too awk­ward to form a cohe­sive sen­tence around the oppo­site sex. Not much has changed. I seem ballsy on the inter­net, but it’s an act. That is a tid­bit prob­a­bly bet­ter not shared, eh?

    Any­who, back to the song True. Every time it came on the radio, I knew that this smooth walk­ing guy would make an appear­ance. Once, while going to Arby’s, the song was play­ing. Sure enough, the guy in ques­tion was in Arby’s, too! This sort of phe­nom­e­non con­vinced me that it was fate he and I would date. WRONG! He had the hots for my friend’s friend.… she was bow-legged.

    OK, ladies, who didn’t absolutely love Jack Wag­ner on Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal? Did you swoon and turn into a pud­dle on the floor when he first sang this on the show to Feli­cia? I think it’s safe to speak for all of us that is a big affirmative.

    When the Jack hey­day was basi­cally fiz­zled and we’d moved on, my brother and I had gone to a Chicago Sting (soc­cer) game with our par­ents. Jack Wag­ner was per­form­ing after the game. Dad had no inter­est in see­ing him, but lit­tle bro and I hung around to wit­ness Mr. Wag­ner live. What fol­lowed dur­ing the per­for­mance would bring sneers and “shh­h­hhh” aimed at my brother and me. We were hoot­ing and hol­ler­ing like stu­pid fan girls. Squeal­ing “we love you Jack!!!” We gig­gled until it became appar­ent it would be best we bid farewell to Frisco.

    There are thou­sands of fan­tas­tic love songs that I shame­lessly croon along to when I’m in the car. Not in the shower. Believe it or not, shower singing isn’t some­thing I do much. Romance isn’t lost on me. It’s just a wait­ing game until it finds me. That is all. Until then, and pos­si­bly dur­ing and after, I will con­tinue to carry out my down with love state of mind for pub­lic consumption.

    Ooh, speak­ing of down with love …

    And I can­not pos­si­bly end this post with­out shar­ing one of the world’s most ulti­mate love med­leys… also star­ring Ewan McGregor.

    and then there is this one from the same soundtrack

     

    Which leads to this song. I love it beyond comprehension.

    See, I am not such a bit­ter, frigid cynic after all icon smile Silly Songs About Love

    For what it’s worth, it makes me weepy every time I attempt to sing along.

    Happy Valentine’s Day.

      Category All You Need Is Love, be still my beating heart, I get by with a little help, Valentine's Day | Tags: | No Comments

    • Speaking Words of Wisdom

      January 24, 2012 by Marissa

      Here I am again attempt­ing to take a stab at a weekly fea­ture on this blog. This inspi­ra­tion stems from an online photo album I started on Face­book that is enti­tled “Hell to the Yeah!” Some of the quotes will be heart felt. Oth­ers will be cheeky and snarky in their deliv­ery. Here and there (a lot, really) are empow­er­ing to women. Men will still be able to appre­ci­ate the sen­ti­ment, though. I mean, it’s not like I am forc­ing you to watch a chick flick or read my chick lit. If you have daugh­ters, guys, you’re surely wish­ing for them to embody inde­pen­dent spir­its, right?
       

      Oop­sies! I went off on a tan­gent. Here is week one of

      Speak­ing Words of Wis­dom

      408312 10150526705324508 788529507 8376559 1581006116 n Speaking Words of Wisdom

      Javier Bar­dem played the char­ac­ter Felipe. Yeah, it makes it all much more sexy now, doesn’t it?

        Category For The Greater Good, getting better all the time, I get by with a little help, Speaking Words of Wisdom, That's Life | Tags: | No Comments

      • Change For a Dollar

        December 11, 2011 by Marissa

        Change For A Dollar

        The link for this video was sent to me (and my sib­lings) via my sis­ter, Karen. The email was sim­ple with a direc­tion to scroll down the page and watch the video. It cap­ti­vated me. Call me a sucker for a touch­ing story,but I’ve been blessed through kind­ness and gen­eros­ity on var­i­ous lev­els. I believe. Small changes can lead to big­ger changes if we just keep the faith.

          Category All You Need Is Love, Angels on My Side, I get by with a little help | Tags: | No Comments

        • ABCs of Gratitude

          November 24, 2011 by Marissa

          Armed Forces — With­out the self­less­ness of men and women who choose to serve in America’s mil­i­tary branches, I wouldn’t have free­dom as I know it.

          Beach­body — With­out the amaz­ing group of peo­ple and pro­grams made avail­able through this com­pany, I wouldn’t have man­aged to lose weight with­out a gimmick.

          Cof­fee — Mir­a­cle elixir of the morning.

          Dop­pel­ganger — I love the word. I’m not so sure I’d ever want to meet mine.

          Estro­gen — I enjoy being a girl! OK, not ALL the time, but I’m grate­ful menopause hasn’t hit me yet.

          Food — Seems rather basic, huh? There’s always food on my table and in my son’s belly… and a bit too much in mine. It’s a love/hate relationship.

          Girl­friends — Every woman needs close-knit female friends. Mine are diverse and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

          Hum­mus — It’s deli­cious and good for you! Think the kids won’t like chick-peas aka gar­ban­zos? Have them try Hummus.

          Idioms — I use them freely. They are fun and add color to conversation.

          Jump­ing Jacks — Two years ago I couldn’t do them. Today I am able to thanks to los­ing weight and increas­ing my strength and mobil­ity. YEA!

          Kit­ties — I love my feline friends. They may be aloof and annoy­ing at times, but I love ‘em.

          Laugh­ter — Yours or my own. It’s the world’s best medicine.

          Man­cub — He is my world and rea­son for get­ting up daily. He teaches me lessons daily.

          Nean­derthals — The jerks who haven’t evolved. Why am I grate­ful for them? It helps me teach my son what NOT to be.

          Open minds — We need more of them in this world.

          Patience — It is a virtue and not some­thing I typ­i­cally pos­sess. How­ever, when it counts the most it’s with me.

          Qual­ity — In this world of excess, I have learned that qual­ity of time and prod­uct is the bet­ter partner.

          Resilience — My par­ents blessed me with the abil­ity to be resilient. Try to knock me down and I bounce right back. A proud fam­ily trait.

          Sis­ters — I have four fab­u­lous female role mod­els. Each one has offered amaz­ing lessons in my lifetime.

          Tech­nol­ogy — This blog brought to you by Apple.

          Uncon­di­tional love — Best feel­ing in the world to give it and receive it.

          Ver­nac­u­lar — OK, it’s an unusual thing to be grate­ful for, I guess. Wel­come to the melt­ing pot! Plus, I’m cur­rently watch­ing Swamp Peo­ple on His­tory Channel.

          Water — Basic. Sim­ple. Not avail­able to every­one on this planet.

          XX — chro­mo­somes that make me a girl! This makes me think of a Sein­feld episode when Elaine declares to George and Jerry, “I don’t know how you walk around with those things. ”

          Zip­pity Doo Dah! — Yes, I sing it when I’m happy. I sing it when I need to get happy. I sing it when I’m being sarcastic.

            Category All about me, America the Beautiful, getting better all the time, I get by with a little help, kindness, Rissues, That's Life | Tags: | 1 Comment

          • Pass the Kleenex

            September 17, 2011 by Marissa

            Man­cub and I have trav­eled to Spring­field for a wed­ding. The bride is my niece; one of my broth­ers daugh­ters. This excur­sion marks the third wed­ding we’ve attended in 2011. Third, but not last. The fourth will be in Octo­ber when a friend weds. Truly the year of commitment.

            Here’s a lit­tle known fact to peo­ple out­side of my fam­ily cir­cle: I have been the offi­cial wed­ding crier since my first flower girl expe­ri­ence in my sis­ter Karen’s wed­ding a bil­lion years ago. All of 6 years old, I sobbed uncon­trol­lably at the altar. Talk about a pathetic sight. To fully grasp what it is about wed­dings that makes me cry so much is fod­der for the psy­chi­a­trists couch. At that age my esti­ma­tion is fear that my sis­ter was being taken away from me for­ever! Of course, that the­ory doesn’t make sense when you con­sider the fact that I can cry at the nup­tials of some­one who is a rel­a­tive stranger. 

            After sev­eral years of see­ing myself in wed­ding pho­tos with smudged eye make up, shin­ing bright red nose and gen­er­ally look­ing as if some­one beat me up, I had to do some­thing. c31fc4f9c3ab40fa4cc2b21fefd652fc 700x550 Pass the KleenexWith FOUR wed­dings to attend in a year, I didn’t want ugly mem­o­ries of myself for the lov­ing couples.

            It is bizarre.

            As I have matured, it has become a smidgen eas­ier to stop the tsunami of tears. That is not to say I do not cry at all. Even though I got teary eyed at my own wed­ding in 1990, I didn’t sob. I should have RUN, but that’s for another day. So many things went wrong on my wed­ding day and the days lead­ing up to it I think I was just relieved it was finally com­menc­ing. Another instance where I didn’t lose con­trol was recently at my sister’s civil union. Tak­ing delib­er­ate steps to main­tain con­trol dur­ing the cer­e­mony was exe­cuted. I fol­lowed these three sim­ple steps:

            1. When music plays or some­one sings (before or dur­ing the wed­ding), start run­ning through a men­tal to-do list for work. A gro­cery shop­ping list or a tally sheet of all the peo­ple you believe to be morons are options, too. Just keep your mind preoccupied.
            2. Scan the other guests and find some­one who is cry­ing and laugh at them (men­tally) for being an ugly crier. If no one else is cry­ing, seek out the worst dressed woman and pick apart her ensem­ble as if you’re Stacy and Clin­ton from What Not To Wear. Yes, it seems cruel but you’re try­ing to save your­self from hideous wed­ding photo ops.
            3. Hum the theme song from The Fam­ily Guy any­time you feel the burn­ing sen­sa­tion in your eyes, nose or throat indi­cat­ing you are about to lose it.

             

            The last one is the hum-dinger of no-fail tech­niques for me. Shar­ing this infor­ma­tion may make me appear to be a lunatic or I’ll be given high praise. Oh, this is just for the cer­e­mony. Ask me to make a toast and all bets are off. Have you ever tried to men­tally sing some­thing while read­ing a heart­felt ded­i­ca­tion to the happy cou­ple? Nia­gra Falls, baby.

              Category All about me, For The Greater Good, freaky shit, I get by with a little help, Insane in the membrane, my mind is a scary place, That's Scary, toss your cookies | Tags: | 10 Comments

            • Indelible marks

              September 11, 2011 by Marissa

              For days I have been con­tem­plat­ing today. If you’re look­ing at the date as you begin to read this, you real­ize it is Sep­tem­ber 11. Mark­ing the tenth anniver­sary of tragedy on United States’ soil.

              It is always my effort to write some­thing that is poignant and mean­ing­ful regard­ing sig­nif­i­cant dates in our his­tory. Today isn’t just about the ter­ror that struck our nation in its heart, but how such an act brought our hearts together.

              I’m not one to spew pol­i­tics or the­o­ries. Remem­brance of my own range of emo­tions and how it affected my, then, 7 year old son. How would I explain what it all meant? Could he pos­si­bly man­age to grasp the con­cept that a group of peo­ple could hold such con­tempt and loathing toward our “Land of the Free; Home of the Brave” or would it go over his head?

              Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. The morn­ing I sat in hor­ror as I watched the events unfold live on tele­vi­sion. Sob­bing, I called work to inform them I’d be late. My man­agers at the time hadn’t heard of the tragedy. It was all just begin­ning when they received my call. As a result, they thought some­thing hor­ren­dous had hap­pened to me, or worse, Man­cub. Through the pan­icked voice I told them what was hap­pen­ing in New York. With­out hes­i­ta­tion I was told to take my time and to keep them informed as the radio wasn’t able to give extended coverage.

              Schools didn’t offi­cially let the kids out early, but they wel­comed par­ents if they chose to pick up their child. There was a def­i­nite need to pull each other closer. There was such a sense of fear and recog­ni­tion that dur­ing this cri­sis, peo­ple wanted to hud­dle close and mourn the loss of so much: Lives, sense of secu­rity and free­dom.  All that we’d grown to expect was sud­denly ripped away.

              A group of cowork­ers decided to meet up at a local eatery. Again, we just didn’t want to be alone. Prior to that I did go to the school to pick up Man­cub. On our short drive from to the school to our home, I asked my lit­tle man if his teach­ers had talked about what was going on in Amer­ica. While not going into detail, the teach­ers were instructed to use their best judg­ment and dis­cre­tion based on the age of their stu­dents. At age 7, Mancub’s teacher sim­ply told the chil­dren that some­thing fright­en­ing was going on, but they were safe at school. She added that par­ents would fur­ther explain … or some­thing of that nature.

              First up in our con­ver­sa­tion was explain­ing the mean­ing of ter­ror­ist. I strug­gled to find an age appro­pri­ate anal­ogy. In his infi­nite wis­dom, Man­cub gath­ered that Bin Laden was like Darth Vader and his min­ions were Stormtroop­ers sim­ply doing his bid­ding. Even­tu­ally, he’d make fur­ther com­par­isons to bad guys vs. good guy sce­nar­ios he’d seen in movies. Mind you, these com­par­isons were on a much smaller scale, but if it helped him under­stand the dire sit­u­a­tion a bit bet­ter, I was OK with it. It seemed to me that he needed to com­pre­hend the cir­cum­stances, but not with attach­ing fear that would keep him up at night.

              The most shock­ing aspect of our talk was when Man­cub sat for a bit watch­ing tele­vi­sion. Then, he turned to me and asked how I would feel if some­one I loved was respon­si­ble for such an act of hor­ror. “Do you think Bin Laden’s mom would be sad for what he has done?” It left me speech­less. And then, he asked if the Pres­i­dent was OK. We hadn’t talked about that.

              On Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 it was my duty to pro­tect my son and help him under­stand what trav­esty had hap­pened to our broth­ers and sis­ters in patri­o­tism. But what hap­pened on that date was that a seven year old boy helped me see beyond the scope of what I had wit­nessed … to look beyond my imme­di­ate anger.

                Category America the Beautiful, Angels on My Side, deep thoughts with Miss Riss, family, I get by with a little help, Love You Forever, Mama Said, Mancub, Never surrender, Proud Mom Alert, Uncategorized | Tags: | 12 Comments

              • Begin Again… again.

                September 8, 2011 by Marissa

                You may have noticed that my posts haven’t revolved around my weight loss efforts. That’s due to me hav­ing less focus on it. I’ve not gained, but in the grand scheme of things that pro­vides no solace. With a goal of 100 pounds to lose and only being 40% of the way there after a year and a half, that is not progress. I don’t know exactly WHY momen­tum was lost about a year ago. Yeah, that’s right. In six months I lost the weight I’ve man­aged to keep off for a year. For the aver­age per­son that is some­thing to cel­e­brate. How­ever, with the way my mind works it is not.

                Refer back to the real goal of 100 pounds to lose. With that all being said, I have begun again. Since the clock has already ticked away the days; months; year, I can’t go back, but what can be done is look back to see what worked for six months in 2010. The work­outs that I’ve pur­chased through Beach­body all have great aspects. I started out with Power 90 and Turbo Jam (loaned to my niece), it seemed nat­ural to move on to their next level work­outs: P90X and Turbo Fire. They are both very chal­leng­ing. It felt good to push my body, though. Yet some­thing hap­pened and I can’t put my fin­ger on it. Lazi­ness? Bore­dom? Old habits? What­ever the rea­son, I couldn’t stick with the pro­grams. Rather than fol­low the pro­vided work­out cal­en­dars, I devi­ated and did other work­outs from Beach­body. Lack of con­sis­tency would prove to be my health and fit­ness demise. At the time, mind you, it wasn’t real­ized. Since it seems to have dawned on me that the prob­lem was about account­abil­ity and con­sis­tency, a return to what worked a year ago is what will be done. The cal­en­dar for Turbo Fire is up on my refrig­er­a­tor. Auto-Schedule in WOWY Super­gym is set for TurboFire.

                Now, when I do my work­out I can post it on Face­book and Twit­ter — it will help me be more account­able. Announc­ing that this is my new path makes it known to all who read this blog (all 4 of you — thanks). For the past two days I’ve done Turbo Fire. Egads! I for­got how it works every mus­cle in my body. I’m sore. A good sore. Unlike some of the other pro­grams I’ve been toy­ing with, this one charges me and isn’t so bor­ing that I count­down the sec­onds. It suits MY work­out per­son­al­ity. Yes, we all have one. Some times it takes sam­pling and explo­ration to fig­ure that out. Fol­low me for the next 12 weeks as I com­plete Turbo Fire. Mes­sage me if you’re inter­ested in being a vir­tual work­out buddy. I could use the encour­age­ment icon smile Begin Again... again.

                300x250 V1a Begin Again... again.

                  Category All about me, Beachbody, Being Bodacious, Bring It in 2011, Bye bye obesity, closeted vixen, healthy lifestyle, I get by with a little help, Never surrender, Rissues, Set backs, Uncategorized, weight loss | Tags: ,,,,,,, | 1 Comment

                • Labor Day: A return to basics

                  September 4, 2011 by Marissa

                  You know ear­lier when I posted about how we need to stop seek­ing joy and ful­fill­ment in far off places? Men­tioned in that post was see­ing the joy and won­der in all we have right here in our hands. Remem­ber? Oh, you didn’t read it yet?

                  Yeah, yeah. I know it’s Labor Day week­end and you’re behind on your Inter­net surf­ing a go-go.

                  Go on. Back track to “World of Won­der.” I’ll wait. I can lis­ten to the free­bie down­load I picked up today by Night Ranger from amazon.com.

                  OK, did you dig what was pre­sented in that blog post? Even if it didn’t strike a chord with you, please con­tinue to read this one.

                  I had THE BEST day with my son Sun­day and it wasn’t even planned! The only thing I knew was that I didn’t have to report to work. The only day off on what is com­monly a long week­end for the worker. It is Labor Day, after all. **harumph**

                  The humid­ity and extreme heat finally broke with intense rain storms that beat on us for a few hours Sat­ur­day night. Sun­day wasn’t cloud­less, but they were big poofy ones scat­tered in front of a beau­ti­ful azure sky. Man­cub and I had gone out to buy a pen­cil sharp­ener (he requires insists upon hav­ing super pointy pen­cils). As we were dri­ving along my stom­ach growled. With only a few bucks to my name, I scram­bled to think of what we could eat at home. Then, I remem­bered that I’d bought some super sav­ings coupons for Bull’s BBQ in Kankakee.

                  BLAHBLAHBLAH! We ate cheaply but the boy didn’t want to go back home. He’d sug­gested going to a gor­geous spot in the area with walk­ing trails that are miles long. The trails fol­low the Kanka­kee River. With the pleas­ing tem­per­a­tures, I said, “maybe.” He’s so accus­tomed to me lack­ing enthu­si­asm, that he didn’t argue. He just smiled and said, “OK.”

                  Rather than let such a beau­ti­ful day go to waste, we set off in the direc­tion of Perry Farm. Not sur­pris­ingly, it was crawl­ing with fam­i­lies pic­nick­ing and doing what fam­i­lies do on a splen­did hol­i­day week­end. Peo­ple on bikes, babies in strollers, dogs with own­ers bip­ping along the man-made paths. Our lack of proper footwear made it clear we hadn’t intended on walk­ing for long, but nature beck­oned us to explore and keep walk­ing in spite of the mild pain in my feet caused by wear­ing san­dals. Part way into the walk it dawned on me that I had a pair of walk­ing shoes and socks in the trunk of the car. Fear that our momen­tum and verve would be lost, we kept walk­ing forward.

                  Photo oppor­tu­ni­ties were plen­ti­ful. Pan­dora pro­vided back­ground music for our stroll. I cracked Man­cub up by say­ing my butt was singing for nature … With that came a bounty of fart jokes. For the record, I’d pressed play on my Frank Sina­tra Radio sta­tion. It seemed an ideal sound­track for a Sun­day walk. Man­cub keeps me gen­uinely amused. When “Beyond the Sea” came on, it should not have come as a sur­prise that he’d start singing along and walk­ing to the beat as if he was in a musical.

                  I give you evi­dence that my son is the most amaz­ing per­son ever!

                   

                  The great­est reward of our walk that resulted in sore bot­toms of our feet was on the drive home. Man­cub turned to me and stated, “For some rea­son I feel really happy. It’s been awhile.” You see, although I am home in between my shifts at work, resid­ual aggra­va­tion often fol­lows me home or work man­ages to con­tact me in my off hours. You’d think I had the key to the secu­rity and sen­si­bil­ity of all that light touches some­times. Addi­tion­ally, due to increased stress I am dog tired. Not only do is my son robbed of qual­ity time, I am stripped of my sense of fun.

                  PHOOEY! Enough of that bullshit.

                  Today was the bril­liant bea­con that I needed. The smack-me-in-the-face wake up call that rein­stated what I am truly grate­ful to have in my life. Yes, employ­ment to feed my charm­ing and delight­ful son is manda­tory, it is NOT that which con­trols me. I am a mom first and foremost.

                  Also men­tioned by Man­cub on the drive home was that it was a real switcha­roo for HIM to want to spend the day out­side. Usu­ally he is con­tent loung­ing on the couch watch­ing movies or play­ing video games while I am plead­ing for us to get out and about to enjoy the gor­geous weather while it lasts.  Is it pos­si­ble that I have made an impact?

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                    Category America the Beautiful, family, frivolity, I get by with a little help, Love You Forever, Mama Said, Mancub, parenthood, Proud Mom Alert, Uncategorized, yawn and stretch | Tags: | No Comments

                  • Thank you John Hays

                    June 16, 2011 by Marissa

                    JohnMeBean

                    You’ve read about my Team Beach­body jour­ney as a weight loss par­tic­i­pant, as well as, a coach. Some of you have been gra­cious enough to tell me I’ve been an inspi­ra­tion and moti­va­tor in your own jour­ney. That touches me deeply and pro­pels me to keep on my path to be health­ier than ever.

                    Los­ing weight is NOT EASY. Any­one who tells you dif­fer­ently is lying. It is a com­bi­na­tion of hard work through exer­cise and food con­sump­tion con­trol. End of story. And a sup­port sys­tem is needed. If you think you can go it alone then you are lying to your­self. When I try to be my own wing­man I fail mis­er­ably. It takes some­one to kick me in the arse and insist that ask­ing for advice and help is not only accept­able, it is appre­ci­ated. There are peo­ple out there who get a charge in their life by being able to offer assis­tance and be that pil­lar of strength when it seems you’ve been dimin­ished to a giant pud­dle of use­less goo.

                    I met such a per­son on Mon­day, June 13, 2011.  Despite my efforts to push this person’s help away he refuses to give up on me. It’s not that other such peo­ple aren’t in my life. It’s just that this guy had never met me in per­son. Our rela­tion­ship started through get­ting to know each other via a blog we both read. Even­tu­ally, it evolved to our emails being less triv­ial or the sub­ject mat­ter revolv­ing around said blog. As time pro­gressed, he would be instru­men­tal in help­ing me kick myself in the butt to lose weight. But it is more than that. He man­aged to help me gain health both phys­i­cally and men­tally. Now, THAT is HUGE!! ha.

                    It was incred­i­ble to finally hang out with this per­son who seems to know me so well and to do so with­out pre­tense. See, he lives in Dal­las and I’m here in America’s Armpit. His pho­tog­ra­phy brought him to Chicago. Per­fect weather in an amaz­ing city cre­ated the ideal day. It felt like I was hang­ing out with some­one I’ve known for­ever. I guess that is what defines amaz­ing friend­ship. Being at ease. Noth­ing awkward.

                    JohnMeBean 300x199 Thank you John Hays

                    An added bonus to the day was meet­ing one of Beachbody’s found­ing coaches, Melanie Bolen. She’s so down to earth. Plus, she gave me a Team Chicago Beach­body t-shirt!! I’ll wear it proudly, Melanie. Danke!

                    What have I learned from this expe­ri­ence? In the past, I found it dif­fi­cult to put myself out there and meet new peo­ple and live through myself rather than vic­ar­i­ously through oth­ers. Hop­ping on the north­bound train alone wasn’t painful at all. As I tell my friends when they are embark­ing on a new phase in life, once you take the first step the rest seems easy.

                    On a per­sonal note to John: I don’t know if you real­ized when you took me on as a TBB coach that you’d also end up being a life-coach. Thank you from the bot­tom of my heart for see­ing through the bitchy veneer. Even more so, thank you for forc­ing me to look in the mir­ror to see what you and oth­ers see.

                      Category ain't too proud to beg, America the Beautiful, Angels on My Side, Beachbody, friends, getting better all the time, I get by with a little help, kindness | Tags: | 1 Comment

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