There's something about yesterdays

I often think back to my past to try to motivate myself. I've needed a lot of motivation lately so I've been doing a lot of thinking. My past, my past's past, my present, and holy hell what will the future bring. Perhaps I'm thinking too much and this is one of the issues I've been having. Something is wrong inside me. Maybe I just need to get it all out. I don't know.

Let's see... today is February 12, 2012. One year ago I was just about to move out of a crappy roommate situation into an apartment with my not-quite-year long boyfriend. What a scary situation, but things had worked out well for us so far and we were pretty sure we were set for a future so, why not? Luckily that's worked out so far. I was also behind in my training for my first 5k that my work was putting on in May. By behind in training I mean I had run a mile maybe once or twice (seriously, that's it) in my life and had only gone as far as to commit to the race. I managed to train for that race in under 8 weeks and the fitness bug has caught me ever since. Thinking back, it's been a great year and I'm so lucky to have the people that I've had to share it with and to be in a relationship with someone who actually supports me doing new and exciting things (and loves to do them himself!).

Two years ago will bring us to February 2010. I had moved in with my estranged husband for a few months and we were considering working things out, though it was clear it wasn't going to happen and he started seeing someone else while I lived there so February brought me to looking quickly for a new home for me and my three girls. I settled on a shady apartment in a bad part of town with an old friend and her daughter and as bad as that sounds, it was so much better than the abusive situation I was in. I'll admit I went a little crazy with the drinking and partying at first. I didn't know what to do with myself with all that had happened to me and my roommate was, and I fear always will be, a partyer.  Still, much like now I didn't get out much and was forced to go out for some me time by my roommate and pseudo roommate (some how another person moved in in this time) to go to visit a bartender friend all by myself. Fun- NOT! That's the strange night that I did what I said I never would do and met a guy and gave him my number and when he called, I called back, and after many an adventure, we're still together. That year wasn't great all the time, but it was a pretty damn good building block.

Now we have three years ago. Come February I was about six months pregnant I suppose, living in my mom's house alone with my two oldest girls. My husband had left me there when I was two months pregnant to fend for myself while he went out and partied. That year was when I started getting stronger. I had no choice but to depend solely on myself to take care of the kids, work and make money, do everything around the house, including lugging firewood constantly for the wood stove. That was the only pregnancy I didn't gain too much weight. I started walking a lot to clear my head. I suppose that's when the exercise bug might have really started. Eating healthy was an idea that began coming around also, since I didn't want to gain the 80 pounds I had in my first pregnancy. This year was a good foundation if I can look at it like that.

Since I'm not going to go on through my whole life backwards year by year I'll sum up a few of the years prior to the ones I described. Alcohol and drugs were a problem after high school and it wasn't until a year after I had my first daughter that I began to smarten up. I began leaving behind the bad influences in my life and finally tried to get on track. Eventually I left the long relationship I had with my daughter's father and that was one of the biggest things I did in my life. My mom is still proud of me for that one. Unfortunately he got replaced Dr. Jekyll and after I got pregnant and soon before our wedding Mr. Hyde came out. There was more wrong in that relationship for me to ever know what I thought was right. He had a lot of people fooled, but I was the last one to finally figure out the truth. The funny thing is that while he left me in September 2008, it wasn't until I finally filed for divorce myself in April 2010 that I was free. He still tried to claim me as his and I even had to change my name from my kids because he was still calling me part of him with his name.

Looking back through the years is very motivating to me when I see what I have over come and seeing the little changes every year that have made a completely new and more satisfied me. I messed up a lot and I will pay for my mistakes forever, but little by little I can change and make improvements and give myself the life that I deserve.

So there's a little bit of my yesterdays, which has helped shaped my todays, and my tomorrows next year better be telling the same story of building blocks, with another addition to my great arena. (Currently I envision my life to be built into an arena- HA!)

I found this picture and it kind of fit a lot into how I feel many aspects of my life are going. As one can tell from my flustered previous post I am not extremely satisfied with how my life is flowing right now. Being a single mom puts me in a very limited situation, my job can sometimes be the bane of my existence (sitting at a desk is pure torture for me), and I'm lacking in the adult companion department.


All of this aside, I need to remind myself sometimes that life does, and is, going on and I have so much of it left, God willing. My main focus of fitness and health right now IS going well because I AM trying. I should not get frustrated reading about other moms who have their husbands, parents, or whatever other support group so they can go out an exercise at leisure. I get to bring my kids and teach them how important it is to take care of your body. My four year old eats more and healthier food than most of the adults I know and can do more push-ups too!
I can't afford Crossfit, MMA classes, or any other kind of trainer for that matter. My progress is still going well and, though it may not be as fast as others, and I may not be able to do a lot of what they do because of my lack of opportunity to learn someone with proper knowledge. I can read, I can soak in information from any source I can and I can do my best. 
I will get a new job someday. Right now, this job works. Hell, I'm 28 years old and still don't know exactly what I want to be when I grow up. I have changed my mind dozens of times; Army, Social worker, psychology, sociology, research, nutrionist, trainer, etc. And all of those I could still be willing to do. Just figuring out what will make me happy. Maybe the slow process to higher education is a good thing for me.


So some of my slowing going accomplishments- yes, this is what I'm talking about, I get things done:

• Joined the Y which has childwatch and fun classes. May not have the newest equipment and it may be a little ghetto, but I am getting more motivated and more opportunities! 
• Ran a slow going 4 mile race. A time of 38:30ish seconds put me at 65th out of 92. I need to improve greatly on my speed, but I showed up in the spur of the moment, ran, and finished. I had a great weekend.
• I have completed my morning 50 sit-ups, 30 push-ups (started at 25), and 5 (increased to 6 today) pull-ups for about 3 weeks now, except for 3 various days when I was not home.
• Got on the healthy boat, fell off and swam around a bit, got back on. Everyone needs a little dip in the water sometimes. Again, like I've said before, routine is too much for me. I have to break it, and I work hard and lose so, why not?
• I have worked out 6 days a week for at least 2 weeks straight! Woo! 

I know I have a lot of mountains and hill to climb in my life. It's fun, really it is. Anything less would be boring. So I'm going to take the slow road, speed it up where I can, but remember to always be satisfied with EVERY accomplishment because doing is what is important.

It's a start...

I decided to start a blog a few weeks ago.. A week later decided to open an account and figured out I could link it to my e-mail. That was cool. A couple days later found an OK picture to throw on. And that brings me to now. I still can not figure out what I want to say. I know what I want to say, just not quite how to say it. For people that know me that would be hard to believe, Shaina having a word block. Of course for people who don't know me well that would make complete sense because I am usually the person sitting back quietly with little to say and a meek voice. I guess to most I am a mystery.... and that probably is why I am stuck knowing what exactly to say, since this is pretty much speaking in public, you just don't know I mumble and stutter.


I'll start with why. Why would I want to put myself out there when I'm obviously uncomfortable with it? Well, that's the point. I need to get over myself. I have a lot of things about my life I want to "get over" or "overcome" or just "do." I've spent a lot of my life just going with the flow, not being very strong, and not really accomplishing much of anything. I'm not going to go through my life story right now, hopefully that will come out with time, if I keep this up. 


For now, here's the low-down. The year 2010 was a big year for me, starting out with finally leaving my husband for good, getting an apartment (with a roommate), and becoming a sure thing single mom of 3 kids. It seems like it could be an awful, depressing time, but that was long before and I was finally free. I could do whatever I wanted and had no one to tell me no, or make sure that I wouldn't be able to do it. That's when my life finally became mine, and I don't think I ever had a moment since middle school when I can feel like that. Since then I've tried college classes, found time and focus for online classes are not my thing. I met a guy who some people may see as kind of a prick sometimes (yeah, I just said that) but to me, he's amazing, he's involved with himself, lets me do my thing, but we also can do everything together. I don't need someone up my butt all the time. I don't. Together we've tried so many new things from skimboarding, to paintball, video games to Magic the Gathering (shush your mouth, it's entertaining). I even taught him to play darts and he became pretty much the best player on our bar team. I found someone that likes to experience life like I do. Every aspect and it's fantastic, even if I have to deal with some a-hole here and there.


On May 22, 2010 my work held it's first annual 5k as a fundraiser. I had never run more than a mile in my life and committed myself to actually training and running it. Training started way too late for me and I ended up getting to that day with only week 4 of the C25K program under my belt. Oh well, here goes nothing. I ran it with my mother who had zero training and a bum knee and we kept it going the whole time, when she would have to walk I would run back and forth... We waved "Hi!" to my boyfriend as he doubled  back by us (yeah, he was almost twice as fast as us, damn Army guy) and I made sure she ran by and smiled like she had it all day. In the end, I ran the whole thing and I felt great and ready for more.

I could not believe it, I had actually run 3.1 miles. I was so hyped up that bf and I got home and immediately started scouring online for more races. I remembered that someone I knew was doing this thing called the Tough Mudder and we planned a trip to Florida to do one in December. Should have given us ample time to train. Unfortunately Army life got in the way along with a lot of other excuses and bf was gone to NJ for trainings a lot of the summer and upon his return in July announced he would be leaving for a year in September. 
That moment stopped a lot for me. It was a sad time. He ended up leaving in October and the sad times continued. The gym would happen, and then not... but I vowed that 2012 would be my year and I would do an obstacle race, no if's and's or but's. 


So that brings me here and now, to today, and how yesterday has brought me here to tell the world what I am overcoming, how I am overcoming it, and how it will make tomorrow. My hope is that if I put my self out there then I will feel obligated to do it. I don't make promises I can't keep. Ever. I don't even tell my kids where we're going ever just so I don't disappoint them because had some tragic event happen on the way. 


There's the start of my story and I'm sticking to it. Here goes EVERYTHING!