Why I Will Always Cry at Coldplay

The second the music started, I knew it was Coldplay, and I knew I was going to cry. It was Adam Rippon's debut at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games and he was skating to "O" by Coldplay. Over the years, there have been a lot of early aughts bands I'm embarrassed to like. Coldplay is at the top of that list. My affinity for Coldplay is probably the most cliche thing about me. Oh, a woman in her forties with a passion for Chris Martin? Next!

When big things happen, you tend to remember the soundtrack of the time, or at least I do. When I turned eight, I got my first boombox. Thriller had just come out and I choreographed all the girls in my class to "Beat It". When I got my first car, grunge was taking America by storm and I drove all over my small town blaring "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Jeremy" on the CD Discman I had plugged into the tape adapter in my 1989 Chevy Cavalier. Like every girl who remembers her college years as a string of fraternity parties, "C'Mon 'N Ride It (The Train)" will always hold a special place in my Chi Omega heart. But only once has a song or a band been present for two major life events. And that band is Coldplay.

I moved to New York City in 2000. If you either don't remember, or weren't old enough to know the adult contemporary charts, Coldplay was HUGE in 2000. "Yellow" was released in 2000, and later, the full album, Parachutes. Every bar in New York played that album. And I mean... Every. Bar. Sweet and Vicious? Parachutes. Spring Street Lounge? Parachutes. Asylum? Parachutes. That bar in Williamsburg that was just couches? Parachutes. H&M?! Parachutes. Also, I was dating my first Wall Street guy and he was English. Even though he (inevitably?) turned out to be a part-time coke dealer and stole money from me, I had a hard time breaking up with him because he was my own personal Chris Martin. (It's okay, I broke up with him. But I would still sometimes give him $40 when he would show up outside of my office in his pin-striped suit and hold my hand as he walked me to the Citibank ATM.)

Moving to New York was my first great liberation. I had a family I didn't fit into anymore, a boyfriend with suicidal ideations, and a lifelong best friend who was moving to Japan. Nothing at home felt good, so I moved to New York and started over. It's a shame Parachutes is an album full of ballads because I had the time of my life, until I didn't.

I had been in New York ten months when 9/11 happened. I was twenty-five and had no idea how to process what I saw, or how to ask for help, so I did neither. I switched to auto-pilot and pretended I was fine. I did a pretty good job of not feeling anything until August 2002 when Coldplay released A Rush of Blood to the Head. It was a month before the one-year anniversary of 9/11 and the cracks in my armor were starting to show. If Parachutes was the soundtrack to my liberation, A Rush of Blood to the Head was the soundtrack to my undoing.

On September 19, 2002, I, along with my best friend Tim, rode a train to Long Island to see Coldplay in concert at Jones Beach. It was my first time seeing them live and I cried through the whole concert. They played with the Atlantic Ocean roaring behind them and it was more than my fractured heart could handle. I was no longer carefree and riding the subway to unknown parts of Manhattan, or trying to get cute guys to buy me drinks in bars. Instead I was pretending to have fun at parties and waking up in the middle of the night paralyzed because I smelled smoke and was convinced my bedroom was on fire. But every day, I woke up, pretended I was fine, and rode the subway to work with A Rush of Blood to the Head playing in my headphones.

I left New York in December of 2002. Exactly two years after I moved there. Coldplay ushered me in, and Coldplay ushered me out. Today their music is a bittersweet reminder of both my potential and my trauma. It bookmarks this huge, fun thing I did in my twenties - moving to New York City, and the grief that ultimately drove me out.

P.S. More on my 9/11 trauma.

P.P.S. My visit to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Self-Care and Saying No

I should really change my blog to Thoughts From A Recovering Perfectionist. Back in the fall, there was a week where I broke my brain by doing too much. Partly because I said yes to a lot of things I didn't realize would happen in the same week. And partly because I'm a people pleaser, and guess what people pleasers do? They say yes.

I did three events that week that should have been a month apart. And one of them was my blog party, which I had been imagining and planning for years. Unfortunately, my party was the last thing scheduled that week and by the time it rolled around, I was exhausted. I had a panic attack a few hours before my party because I was tired and my house wasn't clean. The party ended up being fine. No one noticed my bathrooms weren't clean, or that I was a tiny bit disassociated, but I woke up the next morning with a red, hot, swollen, itchy rash on my spine.

Here's the thing, everything I said yes to that week, I wanted to do, but, turns out, it was more than I could handle, thus, spine rash. It's not like I'm constantly saying yes to things I don't want to do. It's that, and here's where the recovering perfectionist comes in, I don't know my limits, or rather, I don't respect my limits. I also have to keep in check my attraction to adrenaline and excitement. It's one of my favorite hiding places, see also: Ironman 70.3 Augusta.

Here's what I learned. I can't prioritize what I'm holding if I'm holding more than I can carry (I know, read that again). Here's a fun exercise. Pick up eight small items around your house and hold them in your hands - all of them. Now, without dropping them or setting them down, arrange them in order of importance. You can't. And neither can I.

For two weeks, I went HAM on self-care. I said no to everything. I thought, this will be easy, no one ever asks me for anything. Lolololol. In the first 24 hours, four people asked me to do things for them (*for free). I was like, ohhhhhh, now I see. Me the individual came first. If I had to drop something I consider self-care: yoga, meditation, exercise, the answer was no. Sound fun? It wasn't.

*You guys, you have to pay me to 'pick my brain'. You might be surprised to learn this, but lattes don't pay my mortgage, or more importantly, buy my dog's dementia medicine. Shout-out, Linda!

When the two weeks were over, I started saying yes again, but only after waiting 24 hours to respond (this is a new rule that I am very much enjoying). Around this time, I heard Oprah on Dear Sugar and Shonda Rhimes on Super Soul Conversations. They were both talking about how saying no is saying yes to yourself. Oprah said she keeps a list of times it felt good to say yes. When someone asks her to do something, she looks at that list and remembers how it felt in her body to say yes to something she wanted to do.

Because I do everything Oprah says, I made my own lists. I made one like hers, times it felt good to say yes, and a second list of times my instinct said no and my mouth said yes. Everything on the second list ended in disaster - broken contracts, unpaid invoices, unreturned emails, lost friendships - you know, fun stuff.

I'm saying no more often. I have a piece of paper with examples of how to say no taped above my desk. I still get excited and forget to wait 24 hours before responding, but I'm getting better. This is going to seem contradictory, but if you haven't read Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, read it. And listen to those podcasts. Hashtag: Oprah2020. Hashtag: j/k. Hashtag: I'm kidding! Don't blow up my mentions.

Okay, here are the podcasts:

Dear Sugar: The Power Of No, Part 1 - Oprah Winfrey

Oprah's Super Soul Conversations: Changing Your Life By Saying Yes - Shonda Rhimes

P.S. I wrote about self-care after the election and it's sadly still relevant.

P.P.S. Have I ever regretted being vulnerable online? Not really.

The Blonde Mule is 10!

A couple of big things happened recently. *Janie Crawford turned 29, and my blog - this blog - turned 10! I wrote my first blog post on December 4, 2007. A whopping 82 people read it and it received 1 comment from my very good friend bitch, Natalie, aka Shawtime. I've written 1310 blog posts, roughly 131 posts a year (11 posts a month) for TEN YEARS!

*The Paperless Post I sent for my blog party didn't autofill correctly, and instead invited everyone to Janie Crawford's 29th birthday at Herb's Jazz Club.

Let me paint a picture of 2007. MySpace had just died (RIP Top 8), Facebook and Twitter were a year old, not widely used, and Instagram didn't exist. What a time to be alive! All these really cool women had really cool blogs, and you could leave comments and they'd respond. Blogging enabled a lot of women to have a voice on the internet - and go on to write books, start companies, etc. What you now put on Facebook, in 2007, you put into a 4-paragraph blog post. Instagram? Please. No one knew how to take pictures in 2007. There weren't smart phones! There were no filters or ways to edit the brightness. What, was I going to buy editing software and learn how to edit my pictures? Hell no. Those dark ass pictures went straight to my blog.

In 2007, I was 31 years old, working as a staffer in the state senate, dating John, living in a garage, getting my cardio from a step aerobics class at the Green Hills Y (shout-out, Marcus!), and preaching the gospel of Weight Watchers. It was a simpler time. So what was I blogging about? Who knows! I'm too embarrassed to go back and read my old posts. J/K. I've read them and they are hilariously awful. On brand, but awful.

Here are my most viewed posts of all time!

8018 views - Warby Parker Glasses
4337 views - The Day I Met Dan Auerbach
3909 views - Knee Pain - Ouch!
3144 views - An Interview with EBTH Sales Specialist Brittney Forrister
2096 views - Smitten Kitchen Love
2068 views - An Interview with Goodwill Marketing Manager Niketa Hailey-Hill
1981 views - Training For A Triathlon - OMG, SO MUCH GEAR!!! $$$
1363 views - An Interview with Attorney and Fashion Blogger Betsey Appleton
1328 views - Easy Lasagna
1312 views - An Interview with b.fab.fitness Instructor Katherine Tisha Wilson

So what are my plans for the future? Glad you asked! A couple of things. One, I'm switching platforms, because lol Blogger. I actually tried to move to Wordpress about 4 years ago, but ultimately didn't because I would have lost all my pageviews and stats. Now you can move and keep your shizz, so I'm moving. TBD Wordpress or Squarespace.

My other plan for the future is to post more. Over the last couple of years I've quit writing personal posts. It's just not where I'm at anymore, but I'd like more variety on my blog. Right now, it's almost exclusively These My Bitches. In 2018, I may aim for 4 posts a month: 2 These My Bitches, 1 biz/social media post, and 1 personal-ish post. We'll see. I've got to figure out how to redistribute my creativity. Right now, all of it is going into my job and what little is left is going into Instagram Stories of my dog talking to me through thought bubbles.

Thank you to everyone who reads these posts, likes and comments on Facebook. I didn't set out to became "a brand", but somewhere along the way, I did. And that brand enabled me to start a social media business in 2014 that is doing quite well, thank you very much.

At Porter Flea over the weekend, I was overwhelmed by how many vendors (and shoppers) are Bitches. It's the first time I've really come face to face with how many Nashville women have been featured on my blog - all because I had this bizarre idea a few years ago to start writing about my friends' jobs.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'd say here's to 10 more years, but I'm not convinced we'll still have free internet in 2027. To quote sheroes, Aminatou and Ann, "See you on the internet, boo!"

Being Vulnerable Online

This year, am I right? I've had days where I've thought, okay, just do the first thing you have to do, then do the next thing, and then do the thing after that. I'll get through the day, then wake up the next day and think, oh God, I have do that all over again.

Where do you share that? Facebook is a dumpster fire, hardly anyone I know in real life is on Twitter, what Instagram-worthy picture encapsulates: hello, my life is on fire? Do I start a newsletter? I Made It Through This Week:  The Kim Baldwin Weekly. And more importantly, will I regret it if I open up online? Are people going to judge me and talk about me behind my back?

In the ten year (!!) history of this blog, there are a lot of vulnerable, personal posts. Do I regret writing any of them? No. Have I regretted being vulnerable online? Not really. Now, I've certainly written things, hit Publish, and then spent the next thirty minutes feeling like there were fire ants pulsing through my veins. But I have never received anything other than love and support in response to showing my real self online.

This year has probably been one of, if not the, hardest years of my life. And I have written nothing about it, at least not here. Why? Because I run a client-based business. I can't tell you how many meetings I walk into where the client or potential client says, "We love your blog!" And then I walk back to my car thinking, thank God I didn't write any personal posts this year. They don't know I lost my confidence, lost myself, almost lost my marriage, secretly work at a restaurant two days a week, see two therapists, attend a weekly group meeting, and am not allowed to weigh myself. They just think I'm funny. Hooray!

I was thirty-one when I started this blog, and I didn't go into therapy until I was thirty-eight, so there are seven years of posts where I'm airing grievances or vaguely crying for help. In my defense, isn't that what your thirties are for? But now, in my (early) forties, I'm struggling with how to be vulnerable online from an older, tiny bit wiser, perspective. Do I just want to share that I'm struggling, or do I want to wait until I'm out of it, and then share what I've learned? Usually, by the time I'm out of it, I don't feel like taking about it anymore. The struggle is where my voice shows up.

Here's what I want to say. Life knocked the wind out of me last July. I made it through the year on auto-pilot, then in April, I bottomed out. I have PTSD and attachment trauma and for the first time, they were both activated at the same time. I felt so much perceived emotional and physical threat, that part of my brain clicked off. I had to get body work done (shout-out to Reiki) to release the trauma so my brain could come back online.

I've done some heavy emotional lifting in the last four months, and I'm through the darkest part, in fact, as a friend said over the weekend, "You've got your mojo back." And I do. While I've never regretted being vulnerable online, I would have regretted not sharing this.

If you're in the cave, reach out, there are a few of us who deserve, and know how, to hold space with you. A heart on an Instagram post goes a long way sometimes.

P.S. Here are 4 ways to practice self-care.

P.P.S. Where my over-forty bloggers at?

My Story of Yoga

It's funny, in the nine year history of this blog, I've written (exhaustively) about exercise: the exercise I do, don't do, and did but quit doing. I've rarely written about yoga, which has been a consistent, significant part of my life for almost twenty years. This is my story of yoga.

Like many people, I came to yoga from a place of trauma. I lived in New York in 2001 and after the events of September 11, saw a doctor for anxiety. She gave me two choices: medication or yoga. Knowing nothing about anti-depressants and a lot about exercise, I went with yoga. My gym (shout-out, Bally Total Fitness!) offered yoga on Saturdays, so I started going.

Yoga in 2001 was not what it is in 2017. Yoga wasn't cool, and there was no industry pushing $120 lycra pants. In fact, I remember going to Herald Square and buying bootcut stretch pants from the Jennifer Lopez 'J.Lo for Macy's' collection to wear to class.

At twenty-five years old, I was the youngest person in class. There was a tai chi class beforehand and the only thing that changed between classes was the addition of the yoga instructor and me. But I loved my class, and I loved my instructor. She wore all black and a bunch of scarves. She was older, rounder, and had a Jewish-Stevie-Nicks vibe. I knew she liked me by the same way I knew all New Yorkers liked me, she let me be in her presence and occasionally engaged me.

Jewish-Stevie-Nicks taught me yoga. Either yoga marketing didn't exist yet, or I didn't know enough to pay attention, but I don't know what style of yoga I did. I do know that she didn't teach from the front of the class, but moved around, observing and adjusting us. And I know she was a good instructor because in all these years, while I've needed adjustments, I've never needed corrections. I was taught the poses correctly.

I took that yoga class every Saturday for the next year and a half. When I moved home, I joined the YMCA and started taking classes there. Around 2010, lululemon opened a store in Nashville and set about getting to know the local yoga community. They highlighted a different yoga studio a month and you could practice there for $20-$30. It was great! It was my year of The Traveling Yoga Pants.

I have a love-hate relationship with lululemon, but I'll give them this, they brought yoga back into my life. I started supplementing my yoga classes at the Y with one to two classes a week at a studio. My yoga practice was consistent again; my mind was calmer. Plus, I was learning new poses and getting stronger in old ones.

This is a comfortable place for the story to end for a lot of people. But I am not a lot of people. Like all good relationships, there is a cycle of rupture and repair. At this point in the story, my relationship with yoga ruptured. It ruptured when the owner of the studio I was practicing in told me she noticed I was gaining weight and suggested I sign up for this expensive 30-day juice cleanse she was promoting.

Do I need to point out all the things wrong with this? I'm going to assume I don't. But what I will tell you is how I felt when she said that: shame. Shame for being apparently noticeably fat (which I wasn't); shame for not being able to afford the juice cleanse; shame for not being good enough for that studio. I can't remember if I finished out my package, or quit that day, but I never returned to that studio.

I floundered around, trying different studios and going back to the ones I liked: Sanctuary and Steadfast and True. And then this new studio opened that all of my friends were going to, so I started going there. I love a trend and this studio was H-O-T (I mean popular, I don't have the constitution for hot yoga). This studio was fiiiiiiiiine. It was affordable, convenient, all my friends were there, it was sometimes crowded, but it was fine. And then.... I was in one of their crowded 6am classes and realized that everyone in there was competing with each another. The women would go into poses the rest of the class wasn't in. It was bizarre and destabilizing. You can't get centered when you're mat-to-mat in triangle pose and the woman beside you flips upside down. Also? I saw a lot of labia because they were all in shorty shorts and sports bras. Which brings me to my other point...

Whether intentionally or not, this studio fostered a community where "skinny" was the goal. That's a triggering, unhealthy environment for me. The shame started creeping back in. Shame for not being "skinny", shame for not buying their goddamn juice cleanse, shame for not being able to afford their TRIPS TO ITALY. I left and never returned.

It was around this time that I lost my job and went back to doing yoga at the Y, unable to afford classes at a studio. My friend bitch Paige, an instructor at 12South Yoga, asked me to come try her class, and not to worry about paying for it. I had never taken a class taught by a friend and I had never taken an Iyengar yoga class, although in hindsight, I'm pretty sure Jewish-Stevie-Nicks had Iyengar training.

Happy ending alert!

I responded to Paige's class like I responded to yoga back in 2001, which is to say I was welcomed and calmed. Paige's class was healing for me during a time when I needed healing, both physically and emotionally. About six months in, the studio downsized and consolidated their classes and I had to switch instructors. Paige recommended I try Rachel - I did, and it's been eye heart emojis ever since.

In the sixteen years I've been practicing yoga, I've done it for a variety of reasons - anxiety, fitness, injury rehab - but above everything else, I've done it to quiet my mind. I don't practice yoga to show people how good I am at it, or because it comes in a package deal with my juice cleanse, and I don't do it to lose weight. I practice yoga because I love it, it feeds me in a way nothing else does. It's where I've learned vulnerability and trust, and Paige and Rachel have played a large role in that.

Iyengar yoga is my jam. I've been practicing at 12South Yoga since 2014. I would love for all my friends to start practicing there. FYI - Rachel (my instructor) also teaches at Steadfast and True Yoga if you want more schedule/location options.

See you on the mat! Namaste, bitches.

*Photos courtesy of Rachel Mathenia

P.S. I've written poetic, eloquent posts about yoga in the past, posts like A Plea For Panties, and Archie Bunker Goes To Yoga. Enjoy!

P.P.S. You can read more about my experience in NYC here.

4 Ways to Practice Self Care

With absolutely zero sense of hyperbole, the election this week gutted me. I was not prepared for this, and I've had a hard time rationalizing what happened. The morning after the election, I started a private Facebook group where my friends and I could grieve together and eventually talk about what comes next. The page has since jumped the shark, but while it was still being used as intended, it was a great source of community and healing for me, and hopefully for the majority of the almost 1,400 people who ended up being on it.

Like many of us, this election, and particularly the last few months of it, sent me back into regular therapy. One thing my therapist has been helping me with is meaning. One day, I rapid-fired all the words that popped into my head:

fear
impatience
stupidity
ignorance
racism
hate
rudeness
lies
brokenness
meanness
apathy
indignant

And then I went down the list and answered these questions:

1) Not a threat to me because ____
2) What is my meaning that comes from ____
3) I am not a child, so ____.

The idea is joy + meaning = contentedness. I started doing one thing a day that brings me joy. And I read Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. I felt under attack, like other drivers were trying to run me off the road and people we goading me online. When I started to look for meaning and doing one joyful thing a day, plus reading that book (my god, you guys, read that book), I felt better.

I looked at these perceived attacks as an invitation - an actual, literal, paper invitation that you get in the mail. And I declined those invitations. I said no to people's invitation to their (fill in the blank) party, e.g. rage, insecurity, racism, lies, etc. When someone said something inflammatory online, I visualized them walking up to me and handing me an invitation. And then I visualized myself saying no and walking away.

So now here we are, with a President-Elect that many of us didn't support, and many of us are threatened and triggered by. There will be a time for organizing and action, but I'm still grieving. Here are some things that have helped me this week.

4 Ways to Practice Self Care

1) Comedy

A lot of comedians are being very poignant right now, with just the right amount of funny. It helps.

Watch:

Stephen Colbert night-of
Seth Meyers
Stephen Colbert night after
Samantha Bee

Listen:

Call Your Girlfriend, Episode 68, Rage Phase
Put Your Hands Together, election night episode

2) Crying

Just cry. Cry for no reason, cry for all the reasons, cry any time, cry anywhere. Watch old episodes of Sex and the City and cry about a simpler time. Might I recommend the episode in Season 4 when Miranda's mom dies and Carrie jumps in during the funeral procession and grabs Miranda's hand?

3) Face Mask and Chill

Last night, I ordered a pizza, opened a box of wine, put a bendy straw in my glass and then kicked back on the couch with a sheet mask on my face. Ladies, you're going to need moisture after all that crying. Hydrate! This is my favorite sheet mask. It's $7 at Sephora, but there's all these $1 sheet masks at Walgreens, too. I got you, ladies on a budget.

4) OG Communication

I'm talking phone calls and showing up at people's houses. I would rather get my teeth cleaned than talk on the phone, but a friend called me last night after her husband and kids went to bed and we talked for an hour and a half. Call your people! I also had a friend take her fury out via baked goods and casseroles and then she invited all angry, hungry people to come over and eat in fellowship.

--

Ladies, a handful of men I'm not mad at, friends:

This has been a hard week. You're allowed a grieving period. And you're allowed to still be in it. Take the weekend. Buy a sheet mask. Buy a box of wine, don't forget the bendy straws! And let yourself grieve. But soon, maybe Monday, maybe a week from now, we've got work to do.

P.S. I wrote about what it's like to be a woman in politics.

P.P.S. Did this election trigger your body shame? This may help.

Men, Be Better

I've been working since I was fifteen. Guess how many times I've been sexually harassed in the workplace? That number is incalculable because at some point in my twenties, I quit counting. In fact, just this summer I was at a work function with a client who introduced me as their "pretty [job title]". I've been in politics for ten years, own a business, and have a masters degree in public policy, but yes, by all means introduce me as "pretty".

In the decade I've worked in politics, here is the highlight reel of my sexual harassment:

• A man touched my knee under a table, tried to get me to share his milkshake, and his straw, then attempted to drive me to his house.
• A man embraced me and licked the side of my face.
• A man pinched my clavicle and told me to not lose anymore weight.
• A man looked at my breasts the entire time he was talking to me (x 1,000 + one of them was Jeremy Durham).
• A man looked me up and down and asked how much weight I had lost.
• A man told me my predecessor used to let him kiss her.
• A man messaged me on Facebook and invited me to his house.

All of these men only knew me in a professional capacity. I had no personal relationship or friendship with any of them.

I've had it. And I'd had it long before "Grab them by the pussy" made national news. I am a human being. Aren't humans supposed to be equal? Or are some humans just decoration? Do I not deserve autonomy over my body because my anatomy is different than yours?

You do not have permission to touch my body. Period. There are no qualifiers or physical characteristics that change this. My body is not here for you, furthermore, included in my body is my brain, where I have feelings just like you do, albeit probably more resilience because I've been putting up with this bullshit my whole life.

Men, be better.

Earlier this summer, in a week of three police shootings of unarmed black men, an important woman in my life challenged me to not stay silent - that this doesn't get better by everyone ignoring their racist friends and family online. Basically, if you see something, say something.

Men, friends of women - if you see something, say something. You can say, "Hey, my friend Kim (human woman) has been licked on the face and just barely not kidnapped. We need to do better."

I am lucky to have caring, compassionate men in my life, especially my husband. But I want deserve to feel safe around all men. I can't fix this. I need you, men, as a group, to make yourselves safer. You do that by speaking up and checking your friends who are out of line. And you do that by not voting for a man to be President who believes women are property.

Further Reading:

How To Treat A Lady On The Internet

Think It's #NotAllMen? These 4 Facts Prove You're Just Plain Wrong

The Worst Part Of The Trump Tapes

P.S. I wrote a post on How To Get Involved In Local and State Politics.

P.P.S. How to work with me.

Diet Industry Drop-Out

I'm stealing the phrase "diet industry drop-out" from my friend bitch Freya West. During a recent burlesque show, Freya sang a 1929 Sophie Tucker song called, "I Don't Want To Get Thin." If you're alive and on Facebook, you've seen this video, but you should watch it again, #shinetheory.

In the past few months, I've turned forty, realized I've probably lived my entire life with an undiagnosed eating disorder, and read Shrill: Notes From A Loud Woman by Lindy West. I don't know if it's the birthday, the election, or the growing body acceptance movement, but I feel like all the wires in my brain have come undone and are reconnecting in different ways. I'm like a lady Hulk who's superpowers are feminism and caftans.

Why am I telling you this? Because at least once a week, someone introduces me as their friend who works out 1,000 times a week and trains for "crazy" triathlons. Guess what? No, I don't. And no I haven't for like a year. This makes me uncomfortable because:  A) I am not great at accepting compliments; B) this description is not true; and C) this description is of a woman who was really sad.

I don't regret losing forty pounds or doing a Half Ironman; they were great tools for me during a difficult time. But... I'm not that person anymore. I quit swimming nine months ago, I quit running six months ago, and aside from random leisure rides, I quit competitively riding my bike over a year ago. I have a personal trainer, I twerk, I do yoga, and I have a $10/month Planet Fitness membership that I use maybe once a week. I don't track calories or weigh myself. Sometimes my fancy jeans fit, mostly they don't. Luckily, I own 3,000 caftans.

Assuredly, part of the problem is that my bio on every corner of the Internet reads, "runner and triathlete." I haven't changed it because I'm a perfectionist, and if I can't do it "right", then I freeze. Current working bios include:

Writer and blogger. Diet industry drop-out. Budding twerker. Master thrifter. Snapchat enthusiast.
Writer and blogger. Diet industry drop-out. Lover of twerk class, Snapchat, and rural Tennessee thrift store wares.
I believe....
I do what I want!
It's more fun to be happy.

ANYWAY. So yeah, I'm not a runner anymore. I may still be a triathlete since triathletes are known for taking one to two years off and then picking it back up again. In the meantime, I'm going to continue laughing at videos of myself twerking and daydreaming of starting a Nashville Thrifters Club. Stay tuned alert!

P.S. Do you struggle with body shame? So do I. My thoughts.

P.P.S. But do you know what helps? Dancing. And twerking.

Dear Orlando Survivors

I know what it's like to be part of a national tragedy, and to feel like you're not what people are talking about. Survivors don't grieve like a normal person. I'm heartbroken over this senseless fucking tragedy, and I'm horrified that 49 people were shot and killed, but my grief is with the survivors. I know what they're about to face. I know there is going to be a song, or a cell phone ring, they can never hear again, a smell they can never smell again, and that they will never be able to drive past Pulse and not feel a surge of adrenaline, if they can even drive past it at all.

Years from now, there will be another national tragedy, and they'll use yours as a benchmark. The part of your brain that's broken will think you're in danger and will flood your body with fear. You won't recognize it and will wonder why you can't stop crying and why your reaction is so different than everyone else's. Your husband will ask you to call your therapist. Your therapist will ask you to check in with her every day, and to get acupuncture or a massage to release the fear your body is holding.

There is no support club for us. There's no club for people who didn't die in a national tragedy, but were there, saw it, heard it, and smelled it. There's no monthly meeting where we can meet other people like us and then go grab coffee. It is a lonely place.

Dear Orlando Survivors,

I am so sorry for what you saw. Your experience matters, even if no one is giving you space to know that. You'll feel guilty for grieving. Don't. You'll feel guilty for being alive. Don't. You'll feel like you don't deserve your grief. You do.

Surround yourself with people who have earned the right to hear your story and are capable of the compassion and empathy you'll need. Find a professional to help you with the heavy lifting. Know that you matter. Your story matters.

I'm sorry you were forced into this club. So was I. Lonely as you may feel, you are not alone. We don't speak up often, but we're here, and we're holding you up from afar.

Stay well.

--

Please make a donation if you can:

Pulse Victims Fund

Zebra Coalition

P.S. More about my experience with trauma and PTSD.

P.P.S. How to cope.

Fabulous By Forty

Last week I turned forty. As I celebrated, friends kept saying the same thing, "You did it - Fabulous By Forty"! As a recovering perfectionist, and someone who has trouble accepting compliments, I can't even begin to tell you how uncomfortable that made me.

After my birthday, I had my last regular appointment with my therapist. After two+ years of weekly and bi-weekly appointments, I'm transitioning to "therapy lite" (my phrase) where I have check-in appointments every couple of months. In my post-birthday appointment, The World's Greatest Therapist helped me unpack my, let's call it, less than gracious, reaction to the Fabulous By Forty accolades.

She was not surprised to learn people said loving and supportive things, nor was she surprised that I was surprised. She told me for the past two years, I've been climbing a mountain, and the entire time I was climbing, I kept my head down. I didn't look up to see how much farther I had to go; I didn't sit down to rest, and I didn't let myself get distracted. When people tried to compliment me, or comment on my journey, I shooed them away - 'Leave me alone; I'm climbing'.

She asked me, "You climbed Everest, and now that you've reached the summit, you're surprised people noticed"? I am surprised. I had no idea anyone was watching me. I just had to climb that mountain.

In 2013, when my nutritionist gave me the goal of Fabulous By Forty, I had no idea what that would look like. I just wanted to lose weight. Because of course I thought all of my problems would be solved by obtaining the body I was "supposed" to have.

That year, I did lose weight. I also lost my mind. I had a terrible job and an abusive boss, who was eventually fired after months of mediation and victim blaming. So I was skinny-ish and my boss got fired. Everything should be good, right?

One of the directors I worked with was a therapist, and a great human being. About a month after my boss was fired, there was a shooting at one of our facilities and I got triggered. I was talking to him about it and he calmly started questioning me about smells and sounds, and if I had ever talked to anyone. I said no and then said I honestly wanted to talk to someone, not about 9/11, but about why I kept ending up in jobs with abusive bosses - that the only common denominator was me - maybe I was attracting these people. Saying this out loud opened up something that had never been opened and I spent the next few days in a dark headspace. A few days later, he came by my office to check on me and I asked if he could be my therapist. He couldn't, but he gave me the name of a therapist that he thought would be a good match for me. Spoiler alert:  she was. I called and she saw me the next day. I've been seeing her ever since.

In hindsight, I'm pretty sure I had what Brene Brown calls a "spiritual awakening", or what Lifetime movies call a nervous breakdown. Regardless of what happened, I'm glad it did. I'm lucky that I don't have a diagnosed mental illness. I went into therapy because I woke up one day and saw that I was the only connection between what was making me unhappy and causing me pain. And once I saw it was me, I couldn't un-see it. You can't self-help yourself out of that. You need someone to come in and offer you perspective and options for evolving past it - a sherpa, if you want to stay with the Everest analogy - someone to guide you up the mountain and help you hold your shit when it gets too heavy.

I'm forty (I just kicked my legs into the air). Am I fabulous? I don't know. That's a weird word and it doesn't suit me. I am something though, and I'm something I wasn't three years ago. I'll leave you with the mind map I created two days before my fortieth birthday.

Forty:

feminist
self-assured
confident
proud
no apologies
worked hard
boundaries
creativity
business
have opinions
less scared
meditate
morning ritual
vulnerable
tattoo
write more
love more
happier
friendship
exercise
I do what I want
gratitude practice

Thank you for watching me climb a mountain. I didn't know that's what I was doing. I just knew I had climb up out of whatever I was in.

XOXO

Finding Peers Online Over Forty

Where my over-forty bloggers at? I've been wondering this for awhile now, and it keeps coming up in conversations with friends. I'm having a hard time finding people like me online, not just people who are in my situation, but women I feel a connection with. The internet is full of female voices - creatives, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters - but a lot of them are younger and talking about things I've already figured out.

While I do love a millennial podcast, I would looooove to hear from women in their 40's and 50's talking about what they've learned, what they did wrong, how they overcame their failures, and how they reinvented themselves.

Where are the women who are starting businesses after leaving a 10-15 year career? Where are the women who left their careers to raise children and are starting businesses after being at home for 5 years? Where are the women who realized they were unhappy, scrapped it all and started all over, possibly more than once?

I'm not saying I don't know women like this, because, of course I do. What I'm saying is, this is not a predominant, or even easy to find, voice online, or on podcasts. Why is that? If the women I know IRL (I learned that by listening to millennial podcasts) are any indication, it's because they're too busy.

Or is it timing? I started this blog in 2007 when I was 31. If I had been even five years older, I wouldn't have started a blog. The women around my age who did start blogs back then are either too famous to be authentic, or found fulfillment somewhere else and left the internet. There are exceptions - Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge has been around since the beginning and is still super authentic and helpful. Also, Kim France of Girls of a Certain Age. Kim's not doling out live your best life advice, but she's a badass, she's in her 50's, and she has an strong presence online.

Speaking of blogs, there is a "how to" trend right now. Oy. I'm not saying these how-to posts aren't helpful, a lot of them are, but because they're so sharable ("click to pin"; "click to tweet"), and clicks equal money, they are everywhere. I miss storytelling and honest writing. I miss feeling connected to women's lives and struggles. There's not enough balance. The pendulum swung too far when everyone got so goddamn mean in comments sections.

I have the same issue with podcasts. I wish there was a podcast of professional women in their 40's and 50's talking about boundaries, good enough instead of perfect, saying yes to things you don't know how to do, stretching to learn new things, keeping up with technology, better ways to say no to clients, the isolation of working from home, etc.

Maybe this is part of turning 40 - realizing if I want to see a space online for women like me, I have to create it. Does this mean I have to start a podcast? In fairness, I do have a pretty solid connection to a recording engineer... (I'm not starting a podcast.)

To balance out all the shade I just threw, here is a list of blogs and podcasts I thoroughly enjoy:

Blogs:

A Kaleidoscoped Life
Design*Sponge
Emily Henderson
Girls of a Certain Age
Joy the Baker
Parnassus Musing
Sweet Fine Day
The Crepes of Wrath
Wholeheartedly Healthy
Yes and Yes

Podcasts:

2 Dope Queens
Another Round
Call Your Girlfriend
Ctrl Alt Delete
Dear Sugar Radio
Fresh Air
Put Your Hands Together
This American Life
WTF with Marc Maron

Random Sheroes Born Before the Bicentennial:

Brene Brown
Elizabeth Gilbert
Jen Lancaster
Ann Patchett
Esther Perel
Ruth Reichl
Gretchen Rubin
Patti Smith
Zadie Smith
Cheryl Strayed

High-Five, April Body!

So... back in January, like most people the month after Christmas, I was a little fluffy and a little mad. In a post titled Eff You, January Body, I wrote:

As I finished out 2015, I was doing 7+ hours of swim-bike-running a week, plus 2 personal training sessions and 1 yoga class. I have more or less been working out like someone training for a 70.3 triathlon for 2 years with no break. To say I'm burned out is the understatement of the world. I've got to figure out how to keep my body in the general vicinity of it's current size by doing things I want to do, and may even have fun doing. Stuff like hiking, or twerking. Or paying $10 a month to ride a cardio machine at Planet Fitness for 45 minutes twice a week. To be cont'd.

I'm happy to report, I'm figuring it out! About a month after I wrote that post, I read Happier At Home by Gretchen Rubin and had an epiphany:  I do what I want! (said like a 4-year old, mid-tantrum). Gretchen writes about "being Gretchen". I really identified with that, but didn't like the phrase "be Kim", so I tweaked it to "I do what I want!" It also feels more positive to think about what I want, instead of focusing on what I don't want.

So what do I want? Glad you asked! I want to eat better, have fun exercising, and my clothes to fit.  I talked to my therapist, my trainer and I signed up for a meal plan from one of my favorite bloggers. I'm super into all of this and since so many people ask me about my trainer and my twerk class, I thought I'd share their info.

Personal Trainer

Rickey Taylor -- Xcelerated Training

I've been working out with Rickey twice a week since July, and there is a HUGE difference in my body. Huge! I've always been interested in women who lift weights and do strength training, but I've never known what to do, and whatever I did on my own, didn't change my body. Not now! You should see how strong I am and what my shoulders look like in a tank top. Personal training is a luxury, but at our age, most of us can afford a little luxury, especially in the name of strengthening our bones and living longer. ALSO, Rickey is doing my meal planning now and it's really working, so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Twerk Class

Tisha Wilson -- b.fab.fitness

I'm new to this class, but I am obsessed with it. I've been going once or twice a week for a little over a month now. I take the b.fab.funk class at Coleman Park on either Monday or Thursdays at 7:00pm. I prefer the Monday night class, but my cycling team has a Monday night ride, so I'm going on Thursdays now. The class costs $3 and it is hands-down the hardest workout I do all week. It's also the most fun I've ever had in my life. If you want proof, here's a video of us dancing to "Formation" by Beyonce:  b.fab.fitness FORMATION by Beyonce.



Yoga

Rachel Mathenia -- 12South Yoga

I started practicing yoga in New York after 9/11 when my doctor prescribed it for anxiety. I've consistently practiced for 15 years. I made the switch to Iyengar in 2014 when my sweet friend Paige invited me to her Thursday night class. The class schedule changed about a year ago and now I practice with Rachel, who I love dearly and am convinced I share a soul with, or at least the same core personality traits. I love Iyengar and highly recommend it if you have an injury, persistent pain, or if you just want your body to work right.

Meal Plan

Laura Agar Wilson -- Wholeheartedly Healthy

I'm currently working with my trainer on a meal plan, but earlier this year I signed up for Laura's free Two Week Quickstart Guide and I loved it! I've been reading Laura's blog for probably 6 or 7 years now and I'm a big fan. Even if you're not in the market for a meal plan, add her blog to your Reader. Her perspective and her writing style is very unique, very funny, and very real. Seriously, I love her.

My exercise in a typical week looks like this:

2 personal training sessions
1 twerk class
1 yoga class
1 bike ride
1 HIIT (high intensity interval training)

That's it! I'm real happy with all this right now. It's not overwhelming and it's not a week full of stuff I "have to" do. I do what I want!

Body Shaming

This post is going to go in a couple different directions, but the overarching theme is body shame, particularly female, and particularly mine. Quick backstory, one of my favorite people is my friend Freya West, who happens to be the headmistress of Nashville's only burlesque finishing school, Delinquent Debutantes. You can read more about Freya and my experience with Delinquent Debutantes here. Freya is a magical unicorn sent here from another universe to teach us all how to love our bodies and ourselves. Spoiler alert:  she is very successful at this.

This week a member of Freya's tribe wrote an article for HuffPost Women titled, "Big Girls Can't Dance? Oh Yes We Can". The body shaming incident that sparked the article, as well as the response to both the shaming and the article from shero Stacie Huckeba, got me thinking.

I can't remember how early my own body shaming began, at least fifth or sixth grade, if not earlier. With the help of a great therapist and three Brene Brown books, I've realized my "disordered" perspective on my body is connected to shame. Like everyone who is alive and has parents, I received some bad messaging as a child. I believed I was selfish and mean-tempered. It's taken over two years of therapy and an astounding amount of out-of-pocket money to learn that I am neither selfish nor mean-tempered. But these two things are shame triggers for me, and when I get triggered, my body image issues flare up.

So what does this look like? Does someone call me selfish and I eat a carton of ice cream? I wish. I am currently disconnected from my family until I work through this and can re-enter as a healthy, wholehearted person. I'm not there yet, but I'm close. My mom turned 60 in January. I haven't seen or talked to my mom in a year and a half, which is a pain so acute that there are days I can't function. On the day of her birthday, I woke up, looked in the mirror and saw my old body - my body 40+ pounds ago. I stayed in that headspace until I could see my therapist, who had to reality-check me by having me weigh myself. It worked and I went back to seeing my actual body.

An important part of my therapy is learning how to create and maintain boundaries. In learning how to do this, I've struggled with what the people I've had to create boundaries around think of me. If I think someone perceives me as selfish or mean, I get neurotic about my body image. I'll spend a week telling everyone how much weight I've gained, restricting my calories, and restructuring all of my workouts.

You guys, that's shame. And no one is talking about it. Because I am a woman who lives not in a cave, I have friends who are struggling with their weight. A) I feel you. B) I want to ask you what messaging have you received that makes you connect your worthiness to your size? Is there a pattern? Does your body shame spike when you're worried someone thinks something about you that you don't want them to think? Mine does. Big time.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd say I'm a two on how much of a grasp I have on this, and I've had two years of therapy, not to mention the honorary LCSW I've awarded myself for reading three Brene Brown books. All of this to say, I'm no expert and this isn't easy stuff to navigate. But I need this conversation to happen. And maybe you do, too. I've learned that shame can't live out in the open; it needs dark, secret places to thrive. So let's get this shit out there. I don't know about you, but I've lived long enough believing things about myself that aren't true and measuring my worth by my pants size.

Optional Homework Assignment:

If you're in the Nashville area and can throw some money towards women who are empowering other women to reclaim their bodies and their self confidence, buy a $15 class at Freya's studio. You can find a class schedule here. It's easily accessible from downtown, and she has lunchtime classes for you Real Life Business Babes.

P.S. Do you know what helps with body shame? Dancing. And twerking.

P.P.S. Rise up, diet industry drop-outs!

9/11 Museum

I moved to New York City after college and lived there during September of 2001. My trauma around 9/11 has been packed away for 14 years, completely untouched. With the help of the world's best therapist, I've been unpacking that 14-year old trauma and integrating 2001 Kim with 2015-16 Kim. I opened that trunk in my brain that had never been opened, I started telling my story, I started identifying my triggers (sirens, smoke, heights), I baked cookies for firemen, and I got a tattoo. My "last step" was visiting the 9/11 Museum in NYC, which I did three days ago.

My ho, Jaime (We call each other "ho". Just go with it.) turned 40 over the weekend and we took a trip to NYC to celebrate. When Jaime asked me to go to NYC, I asked her to go with me to the 9/11 Museum, which, pro tip, is a really great way to sabotage someone's 40th birthday trip to NYC.

I'm going to fight my impulse to deflect and make light of this and just jump right in. We walked from our hotel to the museum. I haven't been to that part of Manhattan, honestly since 2001-2002, and it looks a lot different so I didn't have my bearings. But all of a sudden, about a block away, I realized where I was and my heart started to race. And then I saw St. Paul's Chapel and I couldn't go any further. I realized I was scared, and I started crying. We were standing right in front of the PATH Station, so people were everywhere and I was just standing still and crying. I felt so embarrassed, like I was putting on a show, which Jaime reminded me is me telling myself I don't deserve these feelings and this grief, which is how I got here in the first place. Jaime's a good ho.

There are a lot of logistics involved in getting into the museum, so that calmed me down and gave me something to focus on. Once we were inside, Jaime did a good job of somehow seeing things before I did and saying, "Hey, you're about to see a thing. Are you ready to see this thing?" And that helped tremendously. Unfortunately, neither one of us knew what was going to be emotional for me to see.

We were walking through and I was doing okay and I started to think that maybe the museum was going to be fine, that the build up to going and the freak out outside was the worst of it. Then we came upon the "Last Column" and I was not okay. For reasons I won't go into here, my fight or flight got triggered recently and I had a panic attack that was so strong I almost (or possibly did) pass out. When I saw the Last Column that same wave of panic washed over me and I lost the feeling in my legs. I don't remember exactly what I said to Jaime, but she knew I wasn't okay. There was nowhere to sit down and I was dizzy and getting nauseous and I was crying. I think Jaime just propped me against the wall and held me up. I don't 100% remember. I do remember that, again, I was embarrassed and felt like I was making a spectacle of myself and that people were staring at me.

I'm a fast recoverer, so I was okay after a few minutes and we went on through the rest of the museum. We had been in there about 2 hours and thought we were done. We sat down on a bench in a kind of community gathering area and I told Jaime my story from September 11, 2001. I had no idea I had never told her. It felt comforting to tell my story inside the museum. It felt right.

We thought we were leaving and instead were at the entrance to the Historical Exhibition. There's a museum staffer that lets you through the double doors into the exhibition and he basically serves as a human trigger warning - no kids under 10, graphic images, graphic audio - and he tells you that it takes 45 minutes to walk through.

This is hard to write because this was the hardest part of the museum for me. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a television playing the footage of The Today Show breaking in with the news that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Towers. I was watching The Today Show in 2001 when they broke in with that news and immediately knew that was the sound I had just heard - the sound of the plane flying over my building and into the Tower. To see that footage after all of the years is surreal. Standing there in that museum, watching that footage, it all came back - the fear, the panic, the terror of thinking I was going to die, and in hindsight, I think my body flooded with adrenaline. I was crying and shaking. I kept one hand over my mouth to keep from crying out and the other arm wrapped my waist trying to control the shaking. And I stayed like that through most of the exhibit.

God, it hurt so much. I saw things I didn't know I was going to see, and didn't know I was going to remember seeing. It's like going back, years later, to the scene of car crash that's still completely intact. It took us probably 90 minutes to get through that 45-minute exhibit and I cried and panicked through a lot of it, for sure through the entire first part. It's hard to tell yourself you're safe when your brain thinks you're not.

When you come out of the exhibit, you're done and back at the entrance to the museum, and then you go outside to the memorial and reflecting pool. I felt like I had been run over by a train. But I was really proud of myself and really overwhelmed with gratitude for Jaime. We both kind of cried and hugged and then walked back to our hotel.

There is a wall in the museum covered in tiles painted by artists in the shade of blue they remember the sky being on the morning of September 11th. For 15 years I've had trouble with the color of the sky from around late July to August because there is a very specific shade of blue in my memory from September 11th and as the sky grows closer to that color, I start getting anxious. For 15 years. I thought it was just me. Thank you, New York.

P.S. More on my 9/11 trauma.

P.P.S. How I'm working through it.

Eff You, January Body

Man, January took a toll on my body. I spent Christmas like everyone else:  binge-watching Making A Murderer and binge-eating Christmas cookies. Then January rolls around and I (A) get super sick and have to go on steroids, and (B) give up my spot in cycling class due to an anticipated schedule change, a schedule change that didn't happen, but I lost my spot nonetheless.

Having to go on steroids the week after Christmas is #thestruggleisreal enough, but being too sick to work-out for the first half of January is unbearable for someone who gets an emotional release from exercise, as well as most of her socialization for the day. So right now I'm feeling a lot cagey and a little fat.

Am I actually heavier? Who knows. It doesn't serve me to weigh myself. All of my clothes are tight, so probably. Oh, and I broke a Moving Comfort sports bra in half (in half!!) this morning trying to put it on.

I'm torn between being a good role model, a good feminist and loving my body, and wanting my jeans to fit. More than that though, I apparently need to exercise and talk to people or I get crazy.

As I finished out 2015, I was doing 7+ hours of swim-bike-running a week, plus 2 personal training sessions and 1 yoga class. I have more or less been working out like someone training for a 70.3 triathlon for 2 years with no break. To say I'm burned out is the understatement of the world. I've got to figure out how to keep my body in the general vicinity of it's current size by doing things I want to do, and may even have fun doing. Stuff like hiking, or twerking. Or paying $10 a month to ride a cardio machine at Planet Fitness for 45 minutes twice a week.

To be cont'd.

2015 Recap

2015 Recap:  This year I...

continued to learn about myself and grow with the help of a therapist
worked through my 9/11 trauma
got a tattoo
started meditating
learned how to do a handstand in yoga
devoted more time to creativity and writing
quit counting calories and weighing myself
restructured my exercise and started working out with a personal trainer
took on 8 new social media clients
learned how to quit - IM Chattanooga 70.3, running, MyFitnessPal

There is a scrap of paper in my wallet that says, "Never measure your strength by how long you can remain." I'm proud of my development this year and excited for 2016!

Morning Ritual

In 2014, I left the 9-to-5 world and started my own business, which means working from home, and working irregular hours. Creating a morning ritual has been a life-saver. When I'm tired or overwhelmed, I can spend hours staring at a screen until I muster the fortitude to answer emails. Having a way to start my day makes waking up easier and keeps me on an even keel.

Morning Ritual:

meditate
make coffee
20-minutes reading
10-minutes reading
10-minutes journaling
breakfast
start working

Initially, I was reading business books, but I read too many and hate them all now, so I spend 20 minutes reading which ever library book is due and then 10 minutes reading an inspirational/creative book.

You'll notice that "check email" is nowhere on this list. That's on purpose. I do not get online or look at my phone until after I've done my morning ritual. In fact, I set my phone to Do Not Disturb until after breakfast. Gone are the days of waking up, looking at my phone and letting whatever is in my inbox or on Twitter dictate my mood for the day.

Let's talk about journaling. Here's what I do: 3 blog ideas, and a list-form brain dump. The lists look something like:  Anxious About, Excited About, Proud Of, Grateful For, Reach Out To, etc. It helps clear my mind before my day starts. I use a blank Moleskine notebook, but there are all kinds of guided journaling/free-writing workbooks if you struggle for content.

I've also started doing affirmations because, turns out, I'm one hell of a manifester. I keep an affirmation journal nearby that I read in the morning. Go ahead, roll your eyes. I'm laughing all the way to the bank, fools.

I'm a morning person, so I like to front-load my day because I lose my creativity in the afternoon. After breakfast, I'll work hard writing all my content for the day and then I spend the afternoon checking notifications, answering email, etc.

So this is what I do every morning! I love it. I start my day in a good mood, inspired, calm, and with a list of ideas I can get creative with later. Try it for yourself!

P.S. Social Media: A Day In The Life. The answer to what exactly is my job?

P.P.S. One time I went off Facebook - and lived to tell about it.

MyFitnessFoe: Je Suis Fini Edition

I've written 76 (now 77) posts under the label "Weight". It's true, I counted. That's roughly 9 posts a year on my weight. I turn 40 in 2016. I'm lucky to have friends in their forties (and fifties) who are kicking ass at life, and none of them are talking about their weight. You know why? Because they're busy running businesses, raising families and BEING INTERESTING. If their jeans don't fit, they buy new jeans. They don't sit around for 2 weeks wondering why their jeans don't fit. This? This is who I want to be. I want to be the person people talk to because I'm funny and have interesting things to say. I don't want to be the person people talk to because I lost a lot of weight.

I went off of MyFitnessPal in August, breaking an 890 day streak. Like a lot of things I've thrown myself into 300% (oh, hey, Ironman), calorie tracking evolved from a healthy habit to a borderline eating disorder.

It's real tricky when the thing harming you is "healthy", or worse, celebrated and envied. Now granted, when I started this, I weighed 200 lbs, which was heavier than I wanted to be as a 5'6" woman with a petite to average frame. I worked hard and lost 40 lbs. But when everything was finished, when I completed Ironman Augusta and when I went months without regaining any weight, I didn't move on. It's like I was taking medicine for an illness I didn't have anymore. (That's my therapist's analogy. I'm not that smart.)

So I quit taking the medicine. And yeah, I totally didn't need it. I haven't weighed myself in 3 months. Do I wonder what I weigh? Daily. Do I trust that if I weighed myself I'd use that information for good instead of evil? Nope. I still work-out, honestly probably too much. And I still pay close attention to what I eat. I've been counting calories in one form or another for 20 years. As much as I hate it, I have the calorie content of every food memorized. But it's the hard data that breaks my brain. That number on the scale serves one purpose for me:  shame. And ain't nobody got time for that.

Around the time I quit weighing myself and tracking my calories, a magical thing happened. I started having ideas. Ideas about things I wanted to write about, people I wanted to talk to, new things I wanted to do, new things I could do. I felt like a whole new wing of my brain opened up.

Another thing that happened, albeit less magical, is a hypersensitivity to messaging. A lot of what I read online has an undercurrent of, 'hey girl, you could be skinnier' or 'hey girl, don't forget to be skinny'. I'll click on something about healthy snacks and 5 minutes later, I'm shaming myself for that handful of tortilla chips I ate, and thinking, 'man, if I just started eating radishes, my jeans probably wouldn't be tight anymore'. My shame is always on the side-lines, jumping up and down, begging to be put in the game. I have to be real thoughtful about what I let in, which is taxing when you just want to cruise Pinterest and watch Scandal.

I'm a lot of things. I'm a lot of conflicting things. But I don't want to be the girl who lost 40 lbs anymore. Lately, I've been interested in finding a hip hop dance class. Maybe I can be the girl who learns how to twerk in her forties. I don't know. I'm going to work it out. Rita, call me.

California Kim

This post has been brewing for seven months. I never wrote about it because after exhaustive discussions with friends and my therapist, I figured it out. So when it crept back up recently, I thought writing about it would bring clarity and remind me of what I figured out all those months ago. Here goes.

When John and I were in LA for the Grammys back in February, we talked about moving there. We came close to doing it, but ultimately decided to stay put. I was crushed. I had already moved there in my mind and had created a whole new persona called "California Kim". I went on and on about how sick I was of "Tennessee Kim" and how I couldn't wait to be "California Kim".

Tennessee Kim had just spent her first Christmas separated from her family and was dealing with the grief that came along with that. Tennessee Kim was training for a 70.3 mile race that she didn't want to do. She had just started a business and wasn't sure what direction to take it in. And she was sick of the far-right politics of her home state.

California Kim, on the other hand, she led a happy, balanced, relaxed life where she rode her bike to the farmers market, ate salads and went on hikes. California Kim didn't train, she did what she wanted to do. She became a yoga instructor and dabbled in juicing. California Kim drove a white Fiat and cruised the Sunset strip blasting Father John Misty.

I'm sure I've said this before, but the key to mental health is integration, so it should come as no surprise that living your life as two different people isn't super healthy. Fear not, I'm in therapy. So back in February-March when all of this came to a head, my therapist helped me realize two things:  1) that I had created California Kim because I didn't want to do my race (I was registered for Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga in May), and 2) that I had to merge California Kim with Tennessee Kim.

*Man, this sounds REAL crazy typing all of this out. It felt normal at the time.

This took a couple of months of work, but I figured it out. I quit training for my race and ultimately didn't do it (a race that I had spent upwards of $500 on, by the way). I started buying healthier foods and snacks to keep around the house. I started thinking about if I wanted to think about becoming a yoga instructor. Oh, and I started meditating.

And it worked. I merged the two Kim's, and I've spent the last few months reprogramming the way I think about health and exercise. It's been great!

So here's where I'm at today. I'm registered for a half marathon in December and I'm a week away from being registered for a second half marathon in April. But I don't think I want to do them. I've started upping my mileage on my training runs and my knees hurt. It's affecting my other exercise. It hurt to kick in the pool this week and it hurts to do squats and lunges, which is a big part of what I do with my personal trainer. I'm not injured, it's discomfort, but discomfort is still a pain in the ass.

WWCKD? She'd probably say fuck it and take her laptop to a juice bar and write a compelling blog post on the resurgence of denim patches.

What do I do if I'm not a runner? Can I still be a runner if I only do my East Nasty and Pancake runs, but no half marathons? Do I even give a shit? I joined a cycling team. Do I become a cyclist, and if so, how do I become a cyclist in the winter? Do I become a yoga instructor and start juicing? These are my questions.

To be continued.