Confidence is Sexy

What’s sexy? What’s beauty?

I see people trying so hard to be sexy. The younger generation especially but not just – some people never quite figure out what sexy is and keep trying to fit the mold of what they think it is based on TV, movies and magazines. Skin tight clothes, low cut shirts, thigh high slits or whatever they see advertised as being sexy. While those things will grab attention, it won’t stick in anyone’s mind after they’ve moved on. It’s the person who carries themselves with grace, poise and confidence that will be remembered.

A lot of people turn to plastic surgery to add or subtract from whatever feature they deem undesirable in order to appear more attractive. Yet, how many people have you seen that are absolutely sexy and gorgeous with what society would consider flaws. It’s all in how one chooses to carry themselves. If they feel good, it shows.

Personally, I think true beauty comes from confidence. Put two people side by side, male or female and dress them exactly the same. The one that stands out and catches everyone’s eye will be the one who’s confident and comfortable with themselves.

Since I have a teen, I spend a lot of time around teenagers and see so many of them going to extremes to fit the mold of sexy and beautiful. As parents, as society, we owe it to our teens to encourage them to embrace every feature and attribute they were born with and to be confident.  It’s that confidence that shines through and grabs everyone’s attention. Besides why would anyone want to look like the next person? It’s the uniqueness in each of us that stands out. Embrace it, love it.

I wish I had this figured out when I was younger. It would have saved me so much time and energy trying to find out who I was and wondering what I could do to look beautiful and sexy just like the ones in the magazines. The simple answer to that is nothing. Everyone is gorgeous in their own way and the beauty comes through when you finally get that in your head.

Sexiness and beauty is in us all. We just need to stop turning to the media for validation and have confidence in what we, each of us, have.

 

 

I Hate Alarm Clocks!

I’ve never been a morning person. This morning the alarm woke me rudely as it always does. As I do every morning, I turn it off and roll out of bed and into the shower. I’ve learned years ago not to snooze for an extra five or ten minutes as it always leaves me feeling frustrated and wanting more sleep.

Back to this morning – I wake up, reluctantly – shower, in sleep mode – get dressed – when I noticed that my daughter still wasn’t up yet. I knew that she should have already been up by the time I got dressed so I rushed in there where I found her still in deep sleep. Crap!

Rushing over to her side, I shook her shoulder, not that gently either. I needed to get through that deep coma she was in at the moment. After a few moments of shaking and calling her name, she finally rose up to the surface.

Squinting, since I turned the overhead light on, she threw her hands up in the air to try and block it out. “Whaa??” I could see her trying to orient herself.

“Honey, you need to get up. You’re going to be late for school.” I could see she was still struggling to shake off the fog she was in. I kept shaking her and trying to get her to focus.

“We need to be out of here by 7:00. Do you know what time it is?” I took her cell phone and waved it in front of her eyes. “Here take your phone and look at the time.”

With one eye, she peered at her cell and looked at me. She should have been jumping out of bed at this point.

“Do you see the time?? You only have fifteen minutes to get ready before we have  to leave.”

Slowly, she looked at me and at her phone then back to me. “Mom, I’m confused.  Why do we have to get up?”

OMG, she’s seriously out of it! “WAKE UP. It’s 6:45.”

Again she peered at her phone. “But it’s 5:45.”

My mouth, which was opening to tell her again to get her butt out of bed, snapped shut. No. That can’t be right… is it?

I backed out into the hallway to look down the hall into my bedroom and the clock that was glowing on my bedside and sure enough – 5;45.

Seriously??? How the hell did I miss that?

 

Guns Aren’t Violent, People Are.

It’s true. So many people are against guns and truthfully, I never liked being around them either for the longest time. Then my ex just wouldn’t stop with all his threats and innuendos. I know that he’s had a gun…whether he has one now, I don’t know but I would be foolish not to prepare myself. So, I got past my discomfort and went to the range to learn how to handle one.

I’ve been handling them for a while now and am getting more comfortable with it. It’s a powerful weapon and definitely not one to fool around or get cocky with, but I understand it and know how to handle it. Had anyone come to me years ago and suggested I get a gun in the house, the answer would have been a flat out NO. I still believe that if one has kids, guns have no business being there unless you’re an extremely responsible individual who knows the extreme importance of keeping guns locked up at all times. Otherwise, don’t even think of bringing one around kids.

Today with my daughter nearing adulthood and proving herself to be a mature person, I have changed my views on owning a gun. My ex stalks me and threatens to “do something” to me. I’d be silly not to at least learn how to protect myself. Take the very thing that so many people are afraid of and so many others use to main and kill with, and understand it. Know how to use it. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.

If anyone comes to me and tells me that their view on owning guns is that no one should have them, I wouldn’t argue with them. It’s a very personal choice and one that’s influenced by life experiences. I just don’t want to be caught with my pants down – so to speak – and not be able to defend myself.

All moral and ethical issues aside – I’m not a bad shot. I hit my target with just about every shot I take. This surprises me because I never expected to be as accurate as I’ve been with a gun. I’ll keep practicing because I actually do enjoy going to the range and shooting. I do, however hope and pray that I will never, ever have to use it in any situation.

Back to the Trails

After roughly five months without running, I finally ventured back out today. It was too beautiful of a day out not to take advantage of it. I figured today would be a great time to test my shin and see how it held up to running again. It felt so good to be outside this morning, with the temperatures in the high sixties/seventy mark and not a single cloud in the sky. The flowers are beginning to burst out in bloom. It felt amazing to be out walking – running again.

 

At first I thought that I’d just go a short route just to test my leg, but once I got out there – well, you can see from the picture above, I just had to go my favorite long path just to be out there. After all, it has been a wet and gloomy (yes, cold too) few weeks for us down here in “sunny” Florida.

My leg held up okay…not great but it’s healing. It was mostly walking interspersed with some running and I did fine for the first couple of miles before the leg started sending out some warning signals. It wasn’t pain, but rather just a little zing here and there just to let me know to back down. Normally, I’d ignore the signals and keep pushing through it. Not now, I’ve been humbled by the lowly leg. It cracked the whip on me hard when I wouldn’t stop punishing it with the running before. Yes – I’m aware I’m referring to my body parts as individual entities. Sometimes it feels that way.

My brain and my body are constantly at war with each other. The brain says we can do it! Let’s go and take on the world! My body says, uh uh, no. There’s 52 years of wear and tear on these parts…slow down. The body parts seem to be winning the battle against the brain for now. But that’s ok, brain is learning to listen and eventually they’ll play nice.

In the meantime, I walked – ran a little until the leg sent out little zingers. Then I’d slow down and take some time to look at the beauty around me. Take pictures. Soak in the sunshine.

Boot Camp

When the doc told me to stop running due to stress fractures in my shin, I pretty much stopped doing anything. I didn’t post any blogs, I just kind of slid into a funk. Originally I was only going to be booted for a month then it was two months then a couple more weeks. When I finally got it off, I was told no running for a while. By that time I felt as if I had gained weight, lost all my muscle tone and just felt generally crappy.

It’s amazing how much of a boost exercise gives your brain, not to mention the benefits your body gets from it. The only problem for me is – it’s so hard to get started. I was doing great for a while there as long as I kept the momentum going. Much like a pregnant woman who gets a free pass to eat and gain weight during the pregnancy, I started eating junk, telling myself that I might as well enjoy something if I couldn’t run. Huge mistake, I know.

Instead of hitting the trails, I decided to try boot camp. I found a great one. It’s small so that it feels as if I had my own personal trainer. The trainer is great, she keeps us moving without sounding like a drill sergeant. The best thing about this is the way it’s giving me a good workout without putting all the stress on my shins, ankles and feet. It’s a slow process but I feel my muscles getting stronger again. My endurance is improving and all without feeling any bone pain in my body.

This is not to say I’m not going to go running again. I will definitely be hitting the trails, especially when those beautiful days. But I’m going to keep mixing it up with an overall training program. Keep taking the calcium supplements and be a little more conscientious of keeping the nutrients that my body needs for bone health.

Perhaps I’ll be able to work my way up to a marathon one day. Yes, I think running a marathon could be one of the things on my bucket list…

STOP STALKING ME!!

Loosely defined – Stalking is the act of following someone around, keeping tabs on their actions. Using intimidation to try and control someone. 

That would be my ex. Even after being divorced roughly 10 years, living apart for about 12…he’s still following me around and watching my every move. Now he’s cyberstalking. A couple of weeks ago he found an old dating profile that I put out there a long while back and copied it onto an email to me, letting me know he’s watching. The other day he’s found this blog. He actually sent me a long email where he lifted quotes from some of my various posts and was trying to debate them with me. 

First of all, a blog as most of us know is simply a forum for us to write and let loose with our thoughts – an online journal. I posted what I was thinking and feeling at the time. My thoughts and feelings are not up for debate. They’re what I was thinking and feeling at the time. It wasn’t like I was trying to explain physics to the world and getting it all wrong. But I know his ulterior motive in sending these emails to me was a form of intimidation. He’s trying to let me know that he’s watching and that he knows (thinks he knows) what I’m up to. 

For years he followed me around, watching…  His excuse every time I accused him of stalking me was that he wasn’t stalking me, no he was simply trying to get close to his daughter. For those of you who are thinking that he has every right to be close to his daughter – absolutely. I agree 100% that he has every right to be involved in his daughter’s life, BUT…and here’s the kicker – whenever we were at a school or dance function, he would be glued to MY side the whole time, not hers. Even our daughter made that observation that he wasn’t there for her. He was there for mom. He also breaks off commitments to her if he’s angry or displeased with me… why?? What do my actions have to do with him seeing his daughter? If it were the other way around and I were in his shoes, I’d make sure I was there for her come hell or high water. 

How do I know he drives past my place regularly? I have a boyfriend who comes over from time to time. There’s no rhyme or pattern to his showing up, we’ve gone weeks without seeing each other, but yet as soon as he shows up at my place, I’ll get a flurry of texts from the X indicating that he knows what I’m up to. These texts are usually not very pleasant in nature. This happens every single time, so yes, he’s watching my place a lot closer that I’d like. 

I left him. I stayed with him for 23 years and finally decided that I had enough. He’s bipolar and agoraphobic. 23 years and he still wasn’t changing. He was emotionally abusive toward me. He was controlling and insecure. His thinking was that if he could make me feel like I wasn’t worthy then I wouldn’t, couldn’t, leave him. I wasn’t free to do anything without him being with me or having to know exactly where I was going or doing. We didn’t have any friends because he didn’t want anyone else coming around or me going out with anyone but him. I stayed with him for as long as I did because I felt so responsible for him. He would always tell me that he couldn’t possibly survive on his own. When our daughter was born I saw how I must have seemed through her eyes. He called me names, belittled me and undermined me every time I tried to do what I needed to do in raising our daughter and she was starting to talk and treat me the way that he did. 

I lost any respect that I ever had for him a long time ago. Like I said, I felt responsible for taking care of him. 

Most of us, or at least myself, would say hey, so and so doesn’t want me anymore? Okay, fine…moving on. Sure it’ll hurt for a while. There may be anger, resentment and even hatred, but I would definitely stay away from said person that didn’t want to be with me anymore. Why on earth would I continue to force myself on someone that has clearly stated that they were done with me? He said we could be friends for our daughter’s sake. I was all for that after all I don’t hate the guy. I just didn’t have any respect or love for him anymore, and I couldn’t allow him to drag me deeper into the hole he was in. I would hope that if anyone ever got to the point where they didn’t respect or love me anymore that they would break it off with me. 

Know those people who make the news? The jilted ones who kill their spouses and their lovers or sometimes themselves?? He’s actually told me several times that he empathizes with those individuals. He can actually understand where they’re coming from. Intimidation?? absolutely. All he can focus on is that I cheated on him. Even though I was married to him for 23 years with no cheating during that time. Yea I wasn’t divorced when I met someone else, but mentally I had already left him. He was such a controlling asshole that I had absolutely no feeling left for him. I felt as if I were suffocating in a dark abyss. The only bright spot was my daughter and I knew that if I stayed, even that bright spot would dim and eventually extinguish. I did meet someone else and guess what, that person is still in my life and I consider him my best friend even after all these years later.

 

X is so focused on what he considers my infidelity, never mind that 10 years after the divorce I still haven’t crawled back begging his forgiveness, that he has made threats. They’re subtle ones because he knows if he comes right out and says anything point blank the cops will have him dead to the rights. But no, these threats are more like telling me that our daughter should go ahead and get her license because she may need to be able to drive herself around and also take care of my mother in case something happens to me.  Telling me that it would be a good idea for me to have my will made out and up to date in case something happens to me. Texting my daughter and telling her that she should get her license and be prepared to help grandma in case something happens to your mom. He’s even followed my boyfriend whenever he leaves my place in an attempt, I’m sure, to find out where he lives. He’s made threatening gestures toward him through the car windows…imitating a gun with his fingers. He’s sent me emails indicating that he would love to hurt the both of us. He’s even gone as far as to tell my daughter when she was around 11 or so years old that the only reason mom was still here was because of her. Well, she’s 17 getting very close to adulthood and it seems that he’s escalating his stalking and threatening messages. I get the feeling that he’s just waiting for the right time.