Thigh Gaps and Knee Slaps

So, what's the deal with "thigh gaps"?  I mean, I don't think I ever had one.  Not even as an infant.  Or a fetus.  When I was a kid that was just never a thing.  Girls didn't aspire to be anorexics or Victoria Secret models.  We aspired to have enough Rave hairspray to get us through a weekend of rollerskating and drinking beer on the railroad tracks.  We wanted to make sure that we we had enough safety pins for our bleached out jeans and enough batteries for our walkmans.  I have always had stumpy limbs and I ain't mad about it because it's not only true that "thick thighs save lives", they also save cell phones from falling in the toilet when you're playing Candy Crush in the morning.  They save that last crispy piece of pepperoni from falling on the floor.  They bounce babies which create giggles, which is the best sound in the whole world.  And they look hella good in a pair of skinny jeans.  We, as women, are not meant to look like the 12 year old versions of ourselves.  We are meant to look like humans who have birthed other humans.  Like women who have loved and lost, and drank dranks, and laughed and cried and lived a thousand lifetimes.  So all you skinny bitches eating air and drinking your flat tummy teas for the sake of a "thigh gap", have at it.  I will keep saving lives with these thick thighs, and the occasional cell phone.

Another phrase that cracks me is being someone's "ride or die".  Like, where are we riding and why do we have to die?  It seems really aggressive and extreme.  Can I just be someone's "cruise and live"?  I mean in the end, I'll still be there for you, and in the meantime we can eat pizza and drink whiskey and take the back roads home, and when we get home we can watch some Netflix and fall asleep on the couch and no one has to give up their life.  I say that sounds way better than riding and dying.

I feel like the older I get, the older I realize I am.  I am always using the phrase "when I was a kid", or "kids these days".  The next thing you know I will be telling my kids I had to walk to school in the snow with no shoes, uphill, both ways while carrying my siblings on my back.  Speaking of my back...my poor aching back....

Ok, that's it.

I'm back, Bitches.

Ok, so it's been a hot minute....or a long year since I have last posted.  To be honest, although I have a lot to say, I haven't had the words in me to say them.  I'm not even the same person I was last year, or even last month or last week for that matter, so it's hard to know where to begin when starting over.  They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  So here I am, taking that first step - or as it were that initial thud back into real life.  Because the place where I have been stuck - in my head, on my couch, in Season 5 of Pretty Little Liars, in my sweatpants - isn't the place I want to be anymore.  It isn't the place I can afford to be anymore.  My mental health, my marriage, my family, and the button on every pair of pants I own counts on me becoming a better version of who I currently am.  And I think the reason I am ready to become whoever she is, is because I have stopped comparing myself to everyone else, and to the person I once was, and realized that the only real competition I have is with myself.

So here I stand, a little more wrinkled around the edges, a little harder, a little heavier around the middle, and a little too knowledgeable about four teenage girls on the run from other teenagers without parents and with unlimited resources and hacking skills.

So, today it's raining, and the air is cool (which means my hair is cooperating and I don't look like a human troll doll), and my eyebrows are extremely "on fleek" for the second day in a row, and I am sitting here with my pants unbuttoned (at work - oh please, like you've never done it), and I have made the decision to let Hanna, Spencer, Aria, Emily and Alison figure out who "A" is for themselves for awhile while I get back to the art of yoga, being less of an oompaloompa and reclaiming my life.  After all, being lapped in the mall by a 65 year old woman with pink hair, wearing Lululemon's and rocking out to 21 Pilot's is all the shame this 42 year needs, thank you very much.

I refuse to go back to the me from 7 years ago, regardless of how "cute" or "sexy" people still tell me I was.  Being 317 pounds and barely squeezing into a size 26 jeans, and asking for seatbelt extenders on airplanes is not the life I will ever return to.  I may never be able to run again, but that won't stop me from sweating it out and building up some bangin' biceps in downward dog, or lapping the old lazy me by walking a few miles after work.

Watch out world, I'm back and I'm taking no prisoners.  Unless those prisoners are a size 10 peep-toe booties with a 5" heel in nude suede.  Then, you can consider me -A.  And if you don't get that reference after reading this, we can't be friends.

Kisses,
-L