taking out the dust with a swiffer

I've been telling myself that this is the year I start blogging again. I miss it.

I turned 40 a few months ago. The number doesn’t bother me, because I think age is in the mind, and I will forever be 19 and awkward, except without the god awful big hair. I swear to never have big hair again or allow aquanet within 10 miles of me unless it’s Halloween.

What I don’t like about 40 is that all of a sudden my body is failing me. I’m pretty sure I have tennis elbow on my left side making it so that I can’t quite move that arm properly without a shooting pain. My back hurts in the morning when I get up. Either I need a new mattress or a husband that doesn’t flop all over the bed squishing me into weird positions while he sleeps. I’ve also noticed that sometimes my contacts aren’t enough. I see fine most of the time, but put fine print in front of my and all of a sudden I turn into a contortionist. I’m going to be like my mother-in-law…buying reading glasses by the case at Costco so that I have a pair in every room, every pocket, every purse, and every car. I have grey hairs stubbornly attaching themselves to my head at every opportunity. I’ve spent the last 20 years saying that I will never dye my hair, and now I might have to rethink that, because plucking myself bald is not an option.

I can deal with all of the above, because one thing is worse than any other part of turning 40. My metabolism is slowing down, and I don’t like it one bit. I’ve always been able to eat whatever I want whenever I want and not gain an ounce. My only exercise came from being a mom…loading the dishwasher, vacuuming sixteen tons of crumbs a day, hefting wet laundry from the washer to the dryer, and sometimes chasing a loose dog or cat. Except for needing an engineer to design my bras no one would ever believe that I had 4 kids, because I didn’t have a mom body.

That changed. I started by gaining 15 pounds. I’m okay with that, because to be honest, I was probably at least 15 pounds under weight for my height. Plus, I have cleavage for the first time in my non-pregnant, non-breastfeeding life. In fact, I think I’m going to have to buy new bras soon, because when I bend over, I sort of spill out over the top, and that’s probably completely inappropriate in almost all the places I frequent. It might be okay in Safeway, because I seem to only go there during the nursing home field trips and they’re too busy reading labels to notice my boobs falling out of my shirt. My butt looks better with the weight gain too – at least I think it does. The bed flopper might have lied to me about that.

What I don’t like are the lumps. I’m lumpy in places I used to be flat and squishy in places I used to be firm. I think I’d fail that test where you put a pencil under your boob and if it stays there, then there is a huge sag problem. My thighs don’t fit in my old too skinny jeans, so I had to buy new pairs. A pair of sweats (yes, sweats) now make me look like I’m wearing latex pants. Fitted shirts are too tight on my upper arms. Too tight as in I’m pretty sure that I cut off all circulation to my hands and if I’m not careful, they’ll fall off and then I won’t be able to wear a watch. If I don’t know what time it is, the world will end. Really.

The absolute worse is that I’m pretty sure I now fit into the muffin top category of people. I have to walk with impeccable posture and suck in my stomach to not sort of roll out over the top of my jeans. I even resorted to buying a pair that is sort of regular rise instead of super lows, which I normally wear to make me look less like my legs go up to my ears. I could go with high rise pants and save money. I’ve got a short torso, so high rise pants could totally double as a bra.

Now we’re in the year I turn 41 (although not until September), and this whole thing with my body starting a war against me is going to end, and I’m going win. I use the treadmill a couple of times a week now. That’s huge for me, because I hate that whole gerbil in a wheel feeling that treadmills create. I have to time it so there is something totally trashing on tv, like any of the Real Housewives episodes. They keep me going. At some point I’d like to move from walking to running. My 12 year old has a new love of running 5k’s, and I feel bad that he always has to do them alone. I’m trying to do situps and crunches too. They suck. I’m doing some odd modified pushups. Along with tennis elbow in my left arm, I have something funky happening with my right wrist. Carpal tunnel? Wii injuries? I can’t put my full weight on it in pushup mode, because it doesn’t bend right.

Jeez, I’m falling apart, but I’ll work through the pain. I just had my 20^th anniversary last week, and I hope that we’ll be able to take a kidless trip somewhere, and I will be back in bikini shape as soon as possible, because that trip will be somewhere warm and not enveloped in soupy fog.

(add cleaning up the sidebars to my list of resolutions that I'll forget)