Category: Working out

A Baseball Story: That One Time I Said, “Sure.”

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It was last Summer (2015). It was dusk, and the kids were asleep. The heat of the day had broken, yet there was still a big, fiery sun lying low in the sky.

Scott was outside straightening up the yard, while I was doing the dishes or checking Facebook or something completely ordinary. He popped his head in and with a very loud whisper said, “Meg, come on out here.”

And I did.

When I got out, we discussed plans for our yard, while picking up children’s toys from the grass. He used a baseball bat to point at a tree that needed to be trimmed. Then with his other hand, he tossed a ball in the air and gave a good swing at it with the bat. I watched the ball as it flew to the other side of our yard, landing and rolling toward the back corner of the fence. I took a deep breath through my nose and sighed with contentment.

“Wanna play?” He looked at me and asked. After spending all day with our three little ones, I truly just wanted three little things: wine, sweatpants, and junky TV; the last thing I wanted to partake in was physical activity. I looked at him. His eyes were playful and filled with hope.

My reply surprised me,

 “Sure.”

Once I decided I was going to play, I was all in. We proceeded to set up the bases. We went over the rules, and I could feel his excitement. I hope he felt mine too. It was like we were twelve again, riding our bikes to the neighbor’s house and playing baseball until the sun set. We ran and laughed until our lungs hurt, and we very well could have played all night if it weren’t for the interruption.

“I see you over there,” Said a small, squeaky voice from our back door. We were busted. Our 6 year old daughter got out of bed for water and saw us playing baseball outside. She laughed, and I made a note to myself at the gratitude that I felt. My daughter got to see her parents having fun together. My daughter would know her mommy and her daddy loved each other.

And what was my gratitude is now my hope…that somehow this remains the same. Please, sweet girl, know: Mommy and Daddy loved each other: then, now, always.

Old Lady Changing

” How old would you be if you didn’t know your age?”

The late Dr. Wayne Dwyer asked this question, and I have to be honest, I feel OLD.

I’d blame it on the minivan or the three kids that roll in it, but that’s not really fair now. Is it? 

The truth of the matter is that I feel old because I’ve not been properly taking care of myself. 

I recently started working at a health care facility for the elderly and those who can no longer care for themselve; it’s been eye-opening. 

I want to be as healthy as I can for as long as I can. 

And that’s why I’ve really made the commitment to set a solid example for those three kids rolling in that minivan.

I’m talking salads and workouts.

The Gingerbread Mom

Hi there all. Well, in case you were wondering what would happen when you work out routinely for months and then stop with little to no movement for months, the answer is: it will feel like starting all over again. In my case, it may possibly be worse. 

I’m currently on Day 3 of my 21 Day Fix…

 and I am sore…My muscles are so stiff that I currently have the gait of a gingerbread man. 

Now let me tell you: walking like a gingerbread  man is troublesome enough when you’re alone, but when you have three hooligans (also known as my children) and a puppy running around your house, it’s a whole another ballgame. And I mean that literally. My son just hit my daughter in the head with a nerf football. My dog then soon snatched it up, chewing into foam bits all over our carpet. Super!

Normally, this would be a minor fiasco that could be extinguished in under 2 minutes, by because I am currently gingerbread Mom, I can’t move much faster than grandma after Christmas dinner. 

So it should be quite the sight for my kids to see me as I hobble over side to side trying to reprimand and discipline, but let’s be honest here people: there is no discipline today. No discipline at all. These kids are running a muck, and I’m just trying to maintain survival for us all.

Wish me luck this coming week as I push through this discomfort. Today is “leg day”, and one of my last “leg days”, I tore the moulding off of the wall while trying to position myself on the toilet to pee. Elle told me I was like a robot monster (Yes, she busted into the bathroom to be witness to the whole thing.)

Today’s real challenge though…

These stairs. 


Big love,

Meg

Food for Thought

I believe in food.

I believe food heals.

I believe the power of food is greatly underestimated.

For, food is what every living being wakes up for. It’s what they work for. Often, it’s what they go to bed at night, wondering where its source will come from (for many humans, this is still the case.)

Tonight, my husband and I cooked a meal. Shrimp stir fry.

 He cut the tails off of the shrimp, while I prepped the veggies and other ingredients. During this time, we discussed our day. We decided what should happen with our youngest daughter. We even lightly touched base about opening our own business someday.

I had waited all day to see him, and he, I.

And this meal was our couple’s therapy. It was the mediator of our conversation.

“Can you hand me that cup?” One would ask, as if it were the punctuation of our sentences…

Food heals.

For us tonight, it brought two people, who each had separate days, living near separate lives, together.

I love food.

I could have never declared that 10 years ago.

Oh, the shame for a 20 year old girl to say she loves food. Especially, the chocolate I would eat in secrecy. The fast food. The foods whose big, shiny advertisements brought me to the local grocer like a zombie looking for a brain.

*Must. have. Oreos.*

But that’s not food.

I understand that now.

Oreos and other substances that deem themselves “food” are addictive and deadly. They are not what I love.

Food heals.

Things with shiny, advertisements often do not heal.

Our skin should glow! Our hearts should fill with vigor! Our veins should coarse with energy not diabetes.

You can’t have the conversation we had, when you’re eating a bag of cookies in the dark. To eat this meal that was made with love and feel its nutrients making you stronger, you must know that another, flashier meal won’t do the same for you – when even the ants will not consume it.

When did food become devalued in our world? What kind of organism purposely poisons itself? What other mammal on God’s green earth does not spend their time looking for sustenance.

Because in our world, sustenance of food is also sustenance of soul.

Then and Now: a Confused Woman

“As much as you’ve wanted to, you can’t control the future, Megan,”

A notion I heard countless times before, yet never was able to wrap my heart and soul around its concept. Even still. Now. I remind myself that it is not a concept. It is a truth.

The future is out of my control.

Me: comfortably mediocre since I was an adolescent. In my own way, I thought by never doing much, I could never lose much either. I’ve been in limbo for years. Quietly panicking about the future, I’ve slept in a constant state of ordinary, not knowing what else to do. Throughout my life, if I couldn’t control it, I put no effort into it…

He awoke someone who had lived within me, dormant for so long. The woman who does what’s good for herself, who believes in herself… a woman who is happy… I couldn’t understand her before. Someone, once frightening, is now here and alive.

She is me.

He awakened the woman who puts the effort in…

And this is the point where I cry.

For years, I’ve been trying to put into words what Scott does for me. It’s like everyone else talks to the mediocre me. Scott speaks to that sleeping woman within me.

And she listens.

December 1, 2007. I will become Mrs. Megan Bajorek, but it’s more than that. It’s the day that I embrace that sleeping woman who he sees. It’s the day that I deny the girl who is fine with ordinary.

“…you can’t control the future, and neither can I! But I have you here, and I want you to be there in my future, by my side. That’s what I do have control over.” ~Scott, 2006

 

*EDIT– I wrote this by hand, before blogging and social media were gigantic. It was later posted to my MySpace, but I thought I would share it here.

Scott passed away in a car accident last month and reading this brings me both pain and gratitude. I wish I could have one without the other, but apparently, all good things come with a price.

The pain needs no explanation. He was the love of my life.

The gratitude is to him…

Leaving the school parking lot today, two moms power walked past my van. Sweet ladies, laughing and carrying on… I smiled, while wondering what they were gabbing about.

They’re probably talking about their diets, or the shape of their butts, or recipes they’ll be trying this week. They’re probably complaining about their picky eaters at home. These thoughts streamed through my mind and then one floated to the top. They’re probably complaining about their husbands.

I used to complain about my husband.

“He didn’t…” “He forgot…”  “He’s so…”  “He’s too…”

I look back now on these statements and see how oblivious and spoiled I was.

Me. Me. Me.

I was given such a gift. My person. Someone who not only understood me in a world that couldn’t, but he also asked me to be brave. He encouraged, almost demanded, that I be myself. He loved the ‘me’ I worked so hard to hide. All of that, and he gave me three babies.

Why would I ever pretend that it wasn’t enough? It was everything.
I don’t pray to turn back time. 

I miss being the sweet, spoiled, oblivious wife, but I know that’s just a distant fantasy now. My prayer is different. I pray to God for one statement: thank you.

I want to give all those mindless complaints back to speak those two words to him.

I plead for it daily.

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