Growing Edges
alexa lopezArchive for February, 2009
Balance Ball
I bought a balance ball last summer, intending to work on my core and rehabilitate my abdominal muscles after last year’s surgery.
Well, I guess being in my 30’s means having equilibrium issues…which I should have remembered after showing-off my fancy bar-twirling tricks at the playground for my kids. Wow. I may still be able to spin around that bar like lightning, but my head spins and my stomach churns the rest of the day.
Lying on my back atop that ball, trying to balance myself while rolling up with my abs did one thing for me: it made me want to vomit. Literally. After one set of abdominal crunches I had to concede: this kind of multi-tasking — balancing and rolling up — doesn’t work for me.
I put the naughty ball in time-out for reminding me of my age.
Then I forgot about it — for months — until I read that exercise balls are an easy way to encourage good posture when used in place of a chair. I freed it from the back of the closet.
My big posture-correcting plan was simple: I would balance on the big ol’ ball for a chair while I worked at the computer.
“What are you doing?” Richard asked me.
“I’m working on getting my posture back,” I answered excitedly.
The next night as I proofread, I leaned on the computer desk, my chin resting in my hand. I caught Richard turning to look at me every few minutes and trying to hide a smile.
“What? Why do you keep looking at me?” I asked, expecting the answer he always gives me: “You’re beautiful.”
“I can see the ball is reallly helping with your posture,” he giggled.
Sigh.
© Alexa Lopez, 2009
So Rotten
No matter what I tell them, my kids believe I was probably a perfect child.
I wasn’t.
Seventh grade in Broomfield, CO was the pinnacle of my outright rottenness. I allowed the manifestation of many childish impulses, caring little for any impending consequences:
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I disrupted Spanish class on a dare by doing headstands on my desk (I am so very sorry, Ms. Mavrogaines).
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I stole a raw egg from Home Economics class and tossed it into the classroom of my Spanish teacher during passing period, nearly hitting her in the head (again, my sincerest apologies, Ms. Mavrogaines).
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My Honors Geography teacher transferred me from his class because he couldn’t conduct class with me and my mouth in it (I really missed out — what a great class that was!).
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The night of my birthday slumber party, about 15 of us sneaked out and vandalized our neighbor’s house with my moms’s Avon inventory.
…long year, long list…
It was a bad time; people I knew well and called my friends in Broomfield still don’t respond when I locate and contact them.
Sometimes I wonder how I can rightly expect my children to conduct themselves honorably and respectfully when I was the exact opposite?
Getting all “psycho-babbly” about this won’t benefit you (the reader) much except to say that I know I was more or less left to my own devices in the midst of a nasty custody battle; I was free enough to do my own thing so I feigned self-confidence outwardly while inwardly I loathed myself. I survived by keeping people out.
I’m not even certain how I became a book-worm/studies-focused individual who was never in trouble in high school and became a solemn loner who found her identity in earning straight A’s, yet I remained one who kept people out.
Neither self-preservation method allowed for peace in my soul. That came later, in 1989.
Many, many missteps and screw-ups blemish the landscape behind me yet I have an amazing life. Regrettably for me, all of the very decent people I knew in elementary and middle school in Colorado had enough sense to listen to their parents about staying away from me (it didn’t help that the parents knew whose daughter I was and didn’t want their kids associating with our family), so no friends from childhood remain in my life.
Though I grieve that I can’t make things right with those I knew then, I press on. I have an opportunity as a mother to use my experiences to help my children rely on Someone besides themselves…no survival mechanisms necessary.
© Alexa Lopez, 2009
