Beastmomma

Over lunch today, a friend of mine was explaining a married couple theory to me. She told me that when she was single and asking her married friends what it was like to be married, that she found people to be pretty tight lipped about the day to day experience. She said that she felt like everyone was putting on a happy face and not giving her the real deal. Now that she is part of the married crowd, she feels pressure not to say anything bad about her spouse.  We talked about how she processes things that upset her about his behavior (mostly relating to household chores) with one of her good friends who is also married.  They commiserate and it helps my friend talk to her husband in a calm, non-crazy (her phrase, not mine) manner.  She asked me why I thought it felt different to be doing this as a married woman as opposed to someone who is dating.  I said that I think when you are dating and talking with your friends about the situation, it is because you are still trying to make a decision of whether or not you want to stay with this person.   When you are married, the pact is made.   Also in our society, marriage gets touted as the happy ending to the fairy tale so that if you have stories that smudge that image then it is seen as something being wrong with you.

This brought up in me and got me to talk with her about my concern that my couple friends would rather be hanging out with each other instead of me, as a singleton.  Sometimes, I also feel like my dating adventures are something of a novelty or free form of entertainment much like you would see in a circus freak show.  I know that this is ridiculous because I am a cool person (insert other ego stroking sentiments here) However, I do notice when I go to gatherings where there are lots of couples, that there seems to be a string of inside jokes about how the guys always do____ or the woman always _______.  I think I do things in both categories; maybe that makes me behaviorally bisexual :)  There are some couples I am friends with whom when I am in their presence, I just feel like their love expands to include me.  That the dating stories are part of my quirks and that I am friends with both parties.  There are other couples where I feel like I am in the way or just out of place.   I think this love expansion occurs with practice.  Although, some couples do seem to have a natural knack for it.

I feel like I am getting late in my life where more and more people are pairing up and I am navigating more social settings where there are not many single people my age.  This along with the constant chatter of my family about my wedding date makes me think about couplehood and its dynamics a lot.  I would like to be part of a couple that can expand the love.   I don't even know what would make me say that I am part of a couple now.

One of the things I admire about *Sunday*, even as it irritates me, is his constant concern for appearing too mushy in public or in front of others.  His quote is "We are having a conversation with people, we can do all the touchy feely stuff later." He also has no desire to be the couple that people can annoyed it because they do too much public displays of affection.   Isn't it amazing how something we admire in someone else can also be such a source of frustration?

What about it couples and singles, how do you feel the processing of your relationship occurs and changes?

I have been training for the take down of the LSAT. Here is what I discovered so far:

1. I get tired very easily. It is hard to focus on class after working a full day.

2. When I am doing my computer modules, I am not reading as closely as I should.

3. When I feel good about the answers, I am sometimes wrong.

4. Percentages and tracking progress can be very discouraging.

5. For all the analysis I do about other people's assumptions and what they meant, I REALLY stink at figuring it out on a standardized test with some author I do not know.

6. The test is as much about endurance as it is intelligence or training.

7. It requires much more focus than I think it deserves.

8. The fear is starting to creep in that I will not be ready and end up with another shitty score.

9. Oh how I hate test prep!

Sometime in the past, I was cleaning my bedroom at the old house in MD.  I was trying to do some cleaning.  I found a worksheet I had filled in which was called "All About Me." From the looks of my handwriting,  I must have been about seven years old or so.  Anyway, one of the questions was what is most attractive about me and I had written, "My legs. I think it makes boys like me." Under the person I admire most, "My brother because he is not afraid to be himself."  For some reason, I have been contemplating that memory a lot these days.

When I look at baby pictures of myself, I have no doubt that I was cute.  I don't mean to sound arrogant, but you would have to be pretty darn ugly to not be a cute baby.  I am not sure when the image of myself changed. If I had to guess it would be high school. When I was in junior high, my parents started calling me "little chubby one" in Hindi. This did not bother me so much until other kids at the Gurdwara (Sikh temple) adopted that as well.  In high school, especially in ninth grade, I remember feeling very aware that I was big.  I started that coming of age tradition of hating what I looked like and wanting to improve.   This is something I have carried with me since then.  In college, I had a health adventure which made me believe that I just looked like shit.  I felt like people could smell illness on me and that made me ugly.  When I took a hard look at myself in the mirror, I could see that I was fragile. This was a new experience for me as I took pride in exuding a strong front to the world. 

As I have gotten back into full health and filled out more than I would have liked, I continue to carry this image of fatness and ugliness with me.  I think the process of loving the skin I am in will be life long for me.  I have done these various things to try to improve me health like exercise.  I am trying to buy clothes that look better on me.  I don't feel like my appearance has changed because my clothes don't really fit any differently and I can still see fat deposits on my body. 

My image of myself has remained constant even as I implement different behavior changes.   On Saturday night, when I was spending time with *Sunday* and he commented on how he could see a difference in me.  I felt weird because I thought that we were looking in two different mirrors.  As stated in a previous post, I also felt nervous because I worry that he will return to thinking I am ugly if I do not stick with this workout.  That argument is ridiculous on many fronts and the most obvious retort to it is the fact that he said that he thought I was attractive beforehand and was just saying that he could see the improvement.  Anyway, it is more ridiculous and said that this is how I perceive myself. 

I had tried to just focus on exercise for its own sake instead of imaging how great my body would look as a result. I find weight loss to not be a good motivator for me.  It's just too specific and hard. Instead, I have been focusing on getting through my cycling class at least eight times a month which averages to twice a week and doing one additional workout.  With the running, I am trying to do that also twice a week and adding it onto the cycling class.   With exercise goals that are geared toward running a 5K or increasing the length or the number of weights, it is easier to assess and see progress.  I am trying to embrace a healthier lifestyle and trying not to have such a narrow vision of what it means to be well.

NEWSFLASH JACKASS (said to self in a tone of frustration) accepting compliments is also part of being well.  Seriously, what is healthy about negating nice things that someone says about you? True, I am not the best at taking compliments about my body well. But you know what, my body works HARD to get through those workouts and even if I don't think there is a positive change because I eat crap, I should let it enjoy the props it gets from other people.  As for this fear that someone is going to stop liking me because my body changes, well I cannot really control them or how they feel.  Plus, their future behavior does not really have an implication on their present compliments to me. 

It is also very not being in the present to feel stressed about living up to compliments.  Just like it is not good to internalize and obsess over criticism.  I think about how I am in progress with my family. How I try to tune out at least my aunt and her husband on the notes they sing about what I need to do to be cool.  I think about how I try to remember that my parent's perception of me is not the whole picture. 

Gosh, could this personal growth thing have some better rewards or at least an easier path :)