I can picture the eye rolls now….everything time I talk about the bombing, there are eye rolls because I am supposed to keep it to myself since everyone got sick of hearing my perspective around year 1. Lucky to be able to decide when you want to put something out of your mind when it doesn’t personally affect you. I don’t get that luxury. I get days laced with memories and nightmares here and there all year and then nearing 4/15 they are just stronger and more frequent. I don’t actually choose to ruminate. The brain is magical and mystical and cannot be controlled.

Anyway, that was my disclaimer to tell you that I know you don’t want to hear about it. You have made that clear. And I don’t care. I am going to write about it anyway. Do I make myself clear?

Ok, that picture is huge and I can’t re-size it right now. That’s what I was wearing 5 years ago today. I always remember the outfit because it smelled like burnt hair and bomb smell. I can’t describe bomb smell but it’s one I would know immediately if I happened upon it again. Burnt hair and skin I also still remember. I had to wash it out of this stuff when I got home.

My body amazes me. I was driving home from the Cape today thinking about which nail polish I want to use today and right at 2:49 I looked at the clock. I also started feeling dizzy, staticky like I had forgotten to take my antidepressants except I know for sure I took them. My little gold lame “My pills” travel box is empty. Shaky hands, shaky legs…kind of like when I get low blood sugar. I turned the radio off and observed a moment of silence followed by a sign of the cross.

It’s never been the smells that get to me. Or the screaming. Or the alarms going off in every building. Or the police sirens. Every time I see footage of the bombs going off, I startle and physically flinch even though I have five years of knowing exactly when in any video or news footage it will happen. It’s the survivor’s guilt which has always been the killer. This sense that I don’t measure up or do anything important enough with my life to be alive with 3 young people dead….that gets me. The folks who lost limbs….that definitely gets me. I have annoying nerve pain in my feet. That’s all I have. That’s nothing. It means I sometimes have to skip the gym. Small potatoes.

For a long time I was drinking very heavily. I wasn’t trying to kill myself or anyone else. But I wasn’t not trying to kill myself or anyone else. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be alive. I still don’t. I just have found other ways of dealing with it over the years. Back then, the jeans I wore that day were covered in blood a year and a half later when I cracked my head open on a bathroom toilet because I was trying to vomit up booze and food on a bender night. Earlier that day I had settled in court for an arrest I had 3 months prior. Also a result of survivor’s guilt and not valuing myself. I worked my ass of at work and grad school during the week and then obliterated my mind for every free weekend second I had because I couldn’t deal with the dead people…an 8 year old dead child. And by the way, that kid had a summer house down the street from ours when we lived in NH. So yeah….I think about him a lot.

My parents have now retired to the Cape and I go almost every weekend to see them. Sometimes it is to check up on them and deal with their health issues but most of the time it’s part of a routine I needed to establish to keep myself out of bars and off the road. I had to change the landscape and keep at it for a long time to break some bad habits and restructure my process.

While I went through PTSD, guilt and all the new problems I created trying to mask the real problems, I still moved forward in life as a person with hope. Hence the ankle tattoo which says “Felix Culpa”underneath the coordinates of where I stood 4/15/13 in front of the only bar window which didn’t blow out that day. Survivor’s guilt at least made me feel accountable to change the course of my life to ensure I started doing things on my own terms and didn’t waste precious time on pursuits of things I “should” do based on the projections placed upon me by others and a mortgage.

That’s what made me go to grad school for Health Communication. I wasn’t already doing that for a career like the other students but it interested me and I wanted to change my career. Imagine dealing with retirement investments for years and then taking a course on epidemiology. But I loved it! I still haven’t changed my career which disappoints me greatly. It’s a financial thing in terms of needing to be able to take care of myself. I can’t go backwards in salary to start something new. So I have gotten stuck and look at myself every year as a failure in that regard. If that’s my only regression 5 years out, it’s ok. I am still financially independent. I still have a Masters Degree. My blog just turned a year old and has real followers…not many but they do exist. I am about to embark on another trip to Europe. I have dropped 12 pounds in the past year on my terms. I go to every concert I want to and bathe myself in the art of music. I lose myself in that world and Identify with strangers more than I do people I have known since I was 4.

I stick up for myself. A few years ago I felt I deserved to be undermined and made fun of. I have done my penance. I don’t accept those behaviors anymore. I am a flawed individual who made poor choices to deal with an unspeakable trauma. But those mistakes can’t be held against me forever. Only I am allowed to do that for it’s my survivor’s guilt alone. No one else gets to climb onto that with me because no one in my life besides my father knows what it actually feels like.

So if you read my stuff, yes, you have to listen to my bombing shit from time to time. It’s how I measure my success in life now. It’s the yardstick I stack my decisions and movement against. It’s how I judge the fatality or survivability of my errors…what to let go of, what to work harder to amend. 2:49 on 4/15/13 changed my life forever. I will forever be grateful for my outcome and forever troubled I have one when they don’t. You just never ever shake that. The weight, the responsibility to do well in my life is forever driven by this guilt and luck. I even feel guilty that I am pretty happy in my life now and yet, I think that’s the point. I was supposed to use this, even on the backs of others, to find my happiness and not waste my life. For every place I visited and stood that day, there is no earthly logic as to how it’s possible I am standing here alive today. Yet I am. And I am living….living well. I am being accountable even though it will always be a little tinged with pain.

I am going through an unusual shallow phase. I think I short circuited my brain a little bit at the march against gun violence on 3/24. Plus, the past 3 weeks of holy morals I was flying have been a bit exhausting – not because it’s hard to maintain morals but it’s hard to be so stuck to them when so many people around me are not. And, those types of people make fun of me for having them…an experience I completely skipped over in high school so bullying is a little more Alien to me than you might think. Don’t get me wrong….there was a huge fat shaming period in my junior high days. Fat bullying follows me everywhere but I haven’t ever really been bullied for who I am on the inside so I don’t know how to deal with that….even at 43 – an age when if i had kids I would be teaching them how to handle it. Lucky for the kids I don’t have.

I have been obsessed with the dumbest podcast ever. I am listening to all episodes of “Straight Up With Stassi” from an equally vapid tv show I love, VanderPump Rules. I think it’s like this….I am the deepest mofo you know so I need to have an upside down world that runs sky high the other direction to balance me out. Bravo reality tv provides that balance. In fact, it’s the only reason I haven’t yet canceled my cable tv. You can’t see current season on any of the streaming apps.

This podcast actually can be very funny. And I hear a lot about clothes, skin care products, beauty issues, etc. I check out so many of the products and clothing websites she recommends even though they are recommendations from 2 years ago as I am only to spring of 2016. It’s what has spawned my recent renewed interest in clothes shopping. Last year in Europe I decided to simplify and stripped down my skin care routine and vowed to not buy much in the way of new clothing. I even wore sneakers with dresses. Less than a year later I feel dowdy and that I want to step up my wardrobe a little bit. Hence the recent online splurge where I bought around 10ish items and am sending everything back but one top.

I hate the shape of my body. It’s a real pain in the ass to make it look good. It takes hours of walking around stores with multiple dressing room trips to find a few things which fit and don’t reveal stomach bulge. But I don’t mind doing it because I know I have a bag full of things going home with me which I can wear and am already accessorizing in my head as I drive back from a mall. Online shopping is addictive in terms of scrolling, scrolling and scrolling and adding things to my cart which I will convince myself later not to buy. Unfortunately, I should have let last week’s online cart disappear because it was so depressing for so much of it to not fit.

Some dresses which fit right in the waist are too tight in the boobs. Some dresses don’t even zip all the way up. Others drape in the wrong spot and amplify my over 40 spare tire which no amount of maidenform spandex can truly flatten down. Shirts….anything in a T-shirt material clings to the spare tire and my back fat. I can only wear loose T-shirts covered by blazers which make me look even fatter than I am. Pants…don’t even get me started. I have always been a size smaller in waist than hips so to own pants means to have to buy tops long enough to cover over the gap, the bubble of fat or visible cellulite section of my ass. If you look in my closet you will see tons of tops but very few pants. I go with jeans, skirts or dresses. Dress pants hardly ever work for me.

And lately, this stuff is all I think about. I check for stray eyebrow hairs and blackheads in the car where the light shows them best. In fact, today I was sitting in Cape bridge traffic so bad, I had time to squeeze a few chin blackheads in my car while listening to Stassi. Then I moved on to wondering what good face masks might be out there because I am bored with my pumpkin renewal one that I have had for awhile. I also bought new nail polish over the weekend because I have been feeling baby blue lately. Thing is, I have baby blue already and wore it 2 weeks ago but it’s just not the right shade of it so I bought another one. Really? Who needs 2 baby blue nail polishes? I guess that’s how far over the edge my life has pushed me. I am obsessed with a “look” and the planning it takes to establish it. But I guess it’s a better numbing mechanism than drinking which was my anesthetic of choice 5 years ago.

Maybe this deep level of shallow thinking is something I shouldn’t over judge. Maybe I am being too hard on myself. Maybe it’s ok that instead of my regular Cape weekend jeans and flannel I went with the faux leather leggings yesterday which my mom thought were super cute but probably a little fancy for food shopping. But I felt better about myself in the frozen dinner aisle I guess and maybe I need that right now. Maybe it’s ok for the deep to have a little low tide on occasion.

I haven’t been able to write for a couple weeks. Even now, what I write will be intentionally vague. I have probably experienced enough in the past 2 weeks to pen a small book but I can’t because it must remain confidential. It’s also a topic I stay away from intentionally because I have actually experienced workplace bullying in the past from people who stumbled onto an old, now deleted blog, and used to spread rumors that I was writing about work. Not true. Never wrote about work at all. But I think I have found people who suffer guilty conscience about something can find themselves in every reference no matter what you do.

The cool part of my undercover two weeks is that I got to exercise a unique skill set I have where I see patterns in places other people don’t. Most people think it’s just circus sorcery and try to ignore my theories. But it’s pretty legit. Let’s put it this way. I had a hypothesis that we actually gathered data on and found I was 99% accurate. That’s freaky stuff, especially now that I know new ways to quantify and validate my gut hunches. So I am excited to have been tested in a very public arena and be able to deliver. As a result, important people have taken notice of me in ways I have not been noticed before. In fact, I think it’s these very skills that have kept me isolated over the years because some people do bad things and don’t want to be found out. I’m the girl who always sees the bad things and we are in an environment now where they don’t want any more bad things. I am taking on a slightly different job role tomorrow which is cool and wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been working on this confidential project. So yeah, I am pretty happy about that.

Thing is, I have also been accused of enjoying hurting people with the data I reported with 3 other people. The data has been criticized as though I am the only one who pulled it. The decisions being made with the data are not mine but I am being blamed for them. Had I that much power and influence, I think I would have been in a different job 5 years ago. Silly, silly. The excitement I show for being able to provide value is being mistaken for excitement in the face of others’ pain. Anyone who knows me at all knows I don’t roll that way. I still have guilt about putting a rapist in jail knowing full well he belonged there. I don’t gloriously bathe in the travails of others. I’m an empath, idiots. Look that up.

Doing the right thing is the easiest choice in the world…so easy, in fact, I have a really hard time understanding why so few can make the choice. Execution of the right thing is hard. I will give you that. It does take a really strong person to see it through. But if you make the choice, you can probably find people on the right side of issues who will collaborate and help you through it. You just have to trust. You have to have faith in the “right.”

With the situation I was dealing with, all people were on board, except for two. But it was just as hard for everyone else which these two didn’t see. They had a really hard time believing there should and would be consequences for bad behavior. Know why? Because they behave pretty badly themselves. I think it subconsciously registered that if anyone knew the things they had done, they might lose their jobs. So instead of being on the side of hundreds of people doing the right thing, they vehemently defended one guilty person. It was hard to watch but understandable.

Yet, they lashed out at me. Spread rumors, said mean things and accused me of enjoying myself. Let’s see….I have barely slept in 2 weeks. There were 2 days I couldn’t turn my head to the left. When I didn’t have terrible headaches I have had stomach pains which prevented me from standing up straight. No one pointed that out despite having witnessed my crooked walk. Nightmares were prevalent. New zits popped up. I had trouble finishing meals. And for the past 2 days, with the exception of walking on the treadmill, going food shopping and having dinner with my family, I have slept. I slept late. I slept on the couch. I fell asleep sitting up in the rocking chair. I fell asleep in my parked car. I slept through my 4 year old nephew being up at 7 the past 2 days, despite being a normally light sleeper.

I have received what seems like an apology but it really isn’t. It’s some kind of excuse for bad behavior trying to explain it away and saying I am guilty of similar behavior in the past. I actually am not. For real. It’s trying to be explained as venting. Venting I most certainly have done. This behavior was far from venting. And even in the explanation of it, there is no actual realization we see these behaviors very differently. She sees them as normal, day to day. I see them as unforgivable and deeply concerning. Blaming, bullying, spiting a peer to make one’s punishment more palatable, making another peer “pick a side,” accusing someone whose strongest value is integrity of enjoying hurting people because it somehow is bringing me attention she thinks I want….I am just too grown up for this. I never thought I would say I am too grown up for anything knowing full well what a late bloomer I am. But when it comes to doing the right thing, I guess you could say I have bloomed and spread a garden.

This isn’t something you wash away with a few drinks or an empty apology designed to protect oneself from accountability. This doesn’t go away for me. I just get to walk away from the nucleus of it and get to work more outside the reactor now. But I’m still within radius during a meltdown. Everyone is but these two think only of themselves. Dangerous people to have working near uranium. They will never change. It’s evident from the text messages on my phone. But I won’t back down on this. It’s just too serious.

I was thinking yesterday that I haven’t been writing too much over the past few weeks. It’s not like there aren’t events in the news which I don’t have commentary for. My heart hasn’t gone silent over gun control and all the children speaking out. In fact it’s the first time I have ever felt the little prick of regret of being childless in that I am able to picture having a child who would exercise her first amendment rights and not be able to keep her mouth shut over injustice just like her mom. I’d actually be kind of proud to have a kid like me be my kid.

#Metoo is still heavily present in my mind. I am working through a confidential issue right now which tests the boundaries of integrity and trust to the point I have hives and am having dreams about dogs in danger I cannot save. In the dream, it’s my job to pick which ones go free and which ones have to die and then I have to do the awful job of putting them down. I send my peers off with the safe dogs so they don’t have to see what needs to be done.

So I have a lot on my mind but I realized that by picking up the “Straight Up with Stassi” podcast circa 2015 I have subconsciously called time out on my brain. The podcast is mindless but entertaining. I have actually convinced myself that Stassi from Vanderpump Rules has a little more depth to herself than what I see on my vapid Bravo reality tv obsession. I need the entertainment of it, the break. So the writing is less because I am sourcing my brain with Cocoa Puffs instead of a healthy organic oat selection.

This isn’t a concern by any means. I am not worried the writing is drying up. I just needed a cerebral rest. It’s the timing of it which has significance. It’s only about a few weeks out from Marathon time. This year will be my 5 year anniversary of surviving the bombing. Nobody wants to hear about it. By year 2 I was being told I needed to let it go and that I was wearing it like a hair shirt. I got quieter for all of you but the war in my head and body has tattooed itself into my life right down to the coordinates on my ankle.

Every year about this time I get very cranky….categorically outside what is within the range of normal or to be expected. I am quicker to lose patience with people. I have little tolerance for even the tiniest snippets of other people’s dramas. I have to listen to people complain about being afraid to drive in the snow while I am thinking about dead people and where they would be in their lives now if they were here instead of me.

I am incredibly jaded about being 3 years out from getting my Masters and having done nothing with it. No career change has happened. I can’t drop $40k off my salary to start a new industry from the bottom up. My married friends can sometimes make those choices because of the double income but I just cannot. There’s no law school in my future which would be the next step. I’d love to be working in Bioethics or on a medical board fighting for innovation or the right to die. I have legit talent I am not using. And it’s not even ego talent where I think I could be important. It’s disappointment at all the people I don’t get to help because I am in the wrong place and pretty much shackled to it. My career situation is my only hair shirt.

I went to grad school as 100% response to escaping a bombing. And people call me a pessimist. Fuck you for that categorization by the way. I’d like to see you have depression, anxiety, PTSD and survivor’s guilt and then do something as productive as grad school with it. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

See what I mean about this time of year? It’s not a funny or sarcastic salty. It’s a deeply embedded ogre of black ooze who takes over this time of every year. I ask to not be challenged because I will say the things you don’t want to hear. I will hurt you with my words, irrevocably. I don’t want to but I can’t help it. I am so angry with myself. I am so disappointed in my failures. April 15th is my New Years, my reckoning, my taking stock. 5 years out I am still not using any real skills. I am still not using my degree. I am still in a place where people believe I have no potential and yet I know that it’s I actually have a ton of it but we are all capped at a certain point in this one venue. I need a new space. They are still working towards the cap.

I see the beauty in everything. But I also see all the shadows and evils. I see all the grey, the blurriness of the world. I see past the facades and offend you when I do because I know the parts of you that you don’t want known. That’s the way my brain works and it’s pretty phenomenal even when I see monsters no one else sees. My brain feels limitless but I live in a cage.

I have consciously noticed my brain recessing in order to preserve me over the next month. I am going into a deep, extended fight or flight state which will last about a month. My body is arming itself for the war of tv specials and Facebook posts. My body is loading up it’s weaponry to unleash at the deluge of shit, memories and bizarre platitudes coming my way. All the while, on the inside, I am also at war with myself over my guilt for having nothing to show 5 years later. Three families are absent a loved one. Several people have the scars and amputations as a reminder of what was and what can never be again. I just have a brain disease and foot which hurts on occasion. I got off so lucky. And I haven’t done anything noteworthy which is absolutely dreadful to me.

There will be more shallow podcasts and reality tv, searching for candy and snacks at work to get myself through a rage moment. There will be snipping and snapping. There will be zero empathy for others. I will be cold. I will be less observant of your needs. I will forget to check in on my friends who are suffering for other reasons. I will only be present enough to get the minimum done without calling attention to the fact I am skimming over myself and capabilities. I will be angry most days. I won’t sleep very well. I don’t know if I will be writing or how much. All I know is that last night I recognized this moment against the mirror of the past 4 years. It makes perfect sense that I am obsessed with Stassi’s podcast which is actually pretty good for what it is.

Because of a little Nor’Easter, I had power last night but not the Internet.  Therefore, I cuddled up on the couch with my dog, some magazines and my new copy of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”  I watched the series on Hulu but had actually never read the book so I decided I wanted all the details and more background.

Before jumping into that book, I decided to read Glamour magazine for a little mindless entertainment and vanity – I do care what the most recommended skin care products are considering I still get acne in my early 40s.  I’ll try anything at this point.

I was reading about the need for better plus size fashion options and the designers who are getting more into it.  I read about a company which will help designers who don’t necessarily have the templates, tools or patterns for plus size by supplying them with the necessary items.  One of their selling points is that 2/3 of American women are size 14 or over.

So I am actually in the 1/3 category.  I am not the average American woman.  I am a rarer find.  And yet, I obsess over calories, get upset when I miss a high intensity workout because then I am keeping food on my body I can’t get rid of, worry incessantly my injuries/aches & pains will make me have to slow down, and take a prescription to control food urges so I can better control my weight and never go back to 67%.  I look at my naked body in the mirror every morning and yank my gut up to see how much thinner I would look by straightening it out.  Every day I am disgusted by my fat and ashamed of not being thin.

But I’m in the 33%.  I should be sought after.  I should be better than average.  No, I’m not in the single digits but I haven’t been in the 14 and over for 7 years.  I was single a lot during my fatter years but at least it made sense to me.  When you are in the 67% range, I assume it’s harder to shine – at least it was when I was there.  But it still feels just as hard now.  Maybe it’s the 67% and then only a portion of the 33% who matters – the size 6 and under.  8-12 is a Bermuda Triangle of worthlessness?  Size medium is the middle child?

I can’t make sense of how I am void of value.  Mathematically, this just isn’t adding up.

I was puttering around Portsmouth yesterday and saw this book in the window of a children’s store. At first glance I thought it was pretty cool and just the kind of inspiration little girls should have. They should know their looks shouldn’t be important and what’s inside of them – what pushes them and moves them is what is worth celebrating.

If I were a mom of a daughter or I had a niece, I would probably buy this book. Heck, given a little more creative time, I am someone who could write this kind of book. I am all about positive examples for little girls about never being ashamed of who they are and want to be….who they don’t want to be.

But then I got sad. You see, I am a strong girl. Always have been. But it’s only been in the past year or so that it got “hip” to accept my kind. Fierce used to mean stubborn. Empathetic used to be too sensitive. Creative used to mean weird kid. Selective meant too picky. Settling….not even an option now but would have gotten me married 10 years ago.

Individual athleticism like hiking, yoga, Pilates…were just not things kids did. Team sports were the only athletics for children. Had yoga been a thing when I was a kid, I bet I would have been obsessed with it. I actually very much enjoy being athletic. I just didn’t like people so team sports weren’t my thing. My strength is admired now but as a kid, I was just fat and a loner. Not socially acceptable in the family and neighborhood circle.

Traveling alone….enviable. 10 years ago….”so sad, she has no friends to go with her. Is that even safe?” Single at 43…well, I think that’s still supposed to mean something is wrong with me but I think I am starting to see societal seeds emerging through the dirt as hopeful buds of acceptance and ” the new happy” for women.

I have spent more than half my life in therapy trying to deal with being a stigma in every aspect of my life. Not the kid my parents hoped for. Not skinny. Not emotionally balanced. Not an athlete. Not the first girl a guy would pick. Not the Homecoming Queen. Not proposed to. Not pined after. Not the one who got away. It’s ok, though. All that therapy kept me alive so I could be living life in my terms today. I may even begin to be considered a role model at some point while I am still living. So I think I am getting to the point of being acceptable now….like not all parents would be horrified if their daughter turned out like me. Parents would just hope their girl could get there without the sexual harassment, rape and bombing that hardened my edges.

For all the things I’m not….married, skinny, docile, tame, easy, amiable….the amount of things I am are way cooler. I’m financially independent. I am not unhappily married. I am not being beaten or cheated on or just simply taken for granted. I am not disappointed by the answer to my “what if’s.” And while the body will never look perfect, it could always be worse. I take no shit from anyone. I know my worth and I’d rather grow dusty on a shelf than sell for less than my value. I am fierce. I do what I want when I want. I have zero fear about eating alone in a restaurant. It hasn’t always been that way. Definitely had moments of awkwardness starting out. But think about it….could you handle it right now, this very second? Would you do it tonight if you could? Probably not. You are still horrified by the thought and worried about what other people might think. I’m not. Not only am I not worried what other diners will think, I am aware they don’t really think anything of it at all. If anything, they are jealous.

“Strong Is the New Pretty” is a nice thing for girls to have. They do need to be encouraged to be themselves and to not worry what others think. Their parents do need to be open to who they are and not shame them for their differences. They need every buffer they can get in this world. The problem is, what about the “others?” What book are they reading? Are little boys being given books teaching them about feminism? Are they reading books about how to be better men? How to be desirable husbands? Are they reading books with strong female characters and learning to celebrate whatever traits the ” weird” girls have? Are they being taught about all the different body types women have? Are they being taught how not to make girls feel insecure about themselves? Will they try to close the gender wage gap? Will they refuse to accept their higher salary if the females aren’t being offered the same?

How does this change anything for girls other than telling them it’s ok to be who they are vs. the days we tried to stuff them in a box if they showed any signs of individuality? They will still get paid less. They will still be chosen based on their bodies and looks. Men will say they want to be with strong women but when faced with one, won’t be able to handle it. They will probably be able to negotiate great sex and no strings attached relationships but no one will marry them. They have many options available in terms of being able to have children on their own but they will be financial stifled….held back in their careers with no extra support at home. They can travel alone just fine but will always move in fear of being attacked no matter how strong and independent they are.

We can raise them in all sorts of ways now. They can run companies. They can write bestselling books. They can be politicians, neurosurgeons, Nobel Peace Prize winners, inventors. They can buy their own homes, have children alone. But their opposition will never change. At least not until we browse the children’s book store and see a book called “Feminism Is the New Strong” being marketed for the boys.

Last Saturday morning I grabbed an Orange Theory Fitness workout to justify the remaining weekend of sloth – sitting on the couch with the dog watching Netflix and eating Valentine’s candy. Next to me on the treadmill was a mother daughter duo. Mom is very thin with sculpted arms – that one housewife at a cocktail party who can confidently wear a sleeveless shift dress and know she will spend the evening being the envy of everyone. Definitely the neighborhood’s hot wife, for sure. Looking at her workout intensity you know she is proud of her body and it’s important to her that others admire her work.

When waiting to go in, she was talking to another member about how she tracks every bite she eats while her daughter sat on the bench validating it. Mom was even joking that she tried an all natural dog cookie and didn’t know how to log it, followed by hysterical laughter and explanation that the cookie was all “human” food which is why she tried it. The woman she was talking to shared Oreos are her weakness….that she can eat a whole sleeve in five minutes so she needs to keep them out of the house.

Daughter can’t be more than 13 years old. She’s skinny like the average 13 year old girl would be. Nothing has really begun to form or take shape on her body yet. Cute, freckled, crinkle nosed smile and a side ponytail. Clad in local junior high school team t-shirt and extra small black leggings. She looked like she should be on her way to girls’ soccer practice. Instead, mom’s got her doing high intensity fitness and weight lifting. The kid is burning at least 600 calories in this workout.

It’s a week later and it’s still bothering me. On my way out Thursday night, I saw them again on their way in for the 6:45 class. Shouldn’t she be home doing homework? Texting her friends about boys? Maybe it’s their mother/daughter bonding time. It’s just that Mom goes into her own zone during the workouts. She’s intense, like she’s hanging onto her husband and neighborhood envy the way the rest of us are clinging to survival. There is no laughter or smirking at her daughter. No conversation between them. They are enduring separate, quiet workouts. They are disconnected…unbonded.

I can’t believe this workout could be healthy for a little girl whose body is still developing. Not only that, she has no weight problem or even hint of one later in life so it’s not even a misguided attempt at trying to help her kid lose weight so can get through the teen years without bullying for her appearance. And what does this do to that child’s mind? Does she know she is expected to look like her mom? Is she aware of the tacit message being delivered…look the best, be the best looking in class, the best looking wife, the envy of every cocktail party?

What pops into my mind are the years of the Obama White House when people focused on Michelle Obama’s arms in sleeveless dresses. She was a knockout. Tall, fit and attractive. Fashionable. She was also an incredibly intelligent, accomplished, educated lawyer but that’s not what anyone focused on. Just her body. Is that what this little girl is supposed to grow up to be? The woman with the gorgeous arms? Even as First Lady?

I can’t fault Mom for this. It’s societal expectation and Mom figured out how to meet and exceed the bar. Not only that, she is paying it forward to her kid because she knows it’s important…perhaps more important than her education or bonding over books or “This is Us.” Maybe I am bent out of shape because I failed to meet expectations. I am no trophy wife. I am still not even anyone’s wife.

My mom tried to bond with me over the Hilton Head Diet while eating plain toast and grapefruit. When I lost weight she would take me shopping to buy new clothes as a reward. But I still failed. My mom was the pretty one in school. I wasn’t. Even at 70, my mom is the pretty mom. She looks much younger than her peers. It’s quite a bit to live up to.

I don’t know this little girl’s name but she has seeped inside of me. I feel for her physical and mental health. I fear the vapidness she is being raised to celebrate. I don’t have a great body and I obsess about it. I am constantly in turmoil over what I know I should be doing and the wanting to live like a normal person who eats chocolate when I want to and fruit when I want to. My daily food plan and calories to burn consume my mind. But I also have a very rich intellectual life so I will be ok. Is this girl obsessing about her body already when there are no red flags?

I just don’t think this girl belongs at my gym with the eating disorder recoverers, the post baby body punishers, the midlife crisis males, the “how did this happen” middle aged parents, the trophy wives (her Mom) and 20something approval seeking bar crowd. She’s a little girl with a little girl’s body and totally undeveloped hormones and brain. In fact, those things are still unsettled into the mid-20s. So much time left to be a kid and yet she’s pulling up her body weight on TRX straps, running “all outs, doing burpees and lifting weights over her head. Is this all girls are supposed to be?