Sometimes, one of the hardest things in life is being not useful, not being used – being available and offering to be of use, but having everyone deny the offer. Yeah…, sometimes, that can really, really suck.
And, on the flip side, sometimes, one of the most fulfilling things in life is being of use, being used.
Oddly enough, either end of that spectrum can be exhausting…
Post-a-day 2021
Today has been Memorial Day, a day for remembering, honoring, and extending gratitude to those who have served in the military, whatever branch they may have been, and who died during that service. In their honor and memory, I now always honor specifically Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy and the 18 others who died for Operation Red Wings on 28 June, 2005, through my practice of the workout now called “Murph”. While it is a thing worldwide, today was a bit extra special for me.
One of my cousins used to live in San Diego and work among the SEALs. He was not technically a SEAL, as he was brought in in a non-traditional way, but he worked and trained alongside them for many years. One of his best friends from that work was on the first helicopter that had aimed to rescue the original four SEALs from the reconnaissance mission that had gone so terribly sour. That helicopter was shot down before any aid could be given, and all those in it died.
Below are all of their names, both those from the original four and those who died while aiming to rescue those four. I list them here, that those who read this might offer up a prayer, a positive intention, some light, some love, and/or some gratitude for the efforts of these men to make the world a better place by giving their all, both physically and mentally, as well as for those efforts continuing all the way to the end of their lives. Being in the military is more than about guns and fighting – it is about being one’s best self, such that the country itself has the opportunity and ability to do that same. Therefore, I am always grateful to those who serve in the military, and I give my love to each of these men listed here, that their souls may be at peace, and their families, too.
Navy SEALs
LT Michael P. Murphy
SO2 Matthew Axelson
SO2 Danny Dietz
SOC Jacques J. Fontan
SOC Daniel R. Healy
LCDR Erik S. Kristensen
SO1 Jeffery A. Lucas
LT Michael M. McGreevy Jr.
SO2 James E. Suh
SO1 Jeffrey S. Taylor
SO2 Shane E. Patton
Army 160th SOAR
SSG Shamus O. Goare
CWO3 Corey J. Goodnature
SGT Kip A. Jacoby
SFC Marcus V. Muralles
MSG James W. Ponder III
MAJ Stephen C. Reich
SFC Michael L. Russell
CWO4 Chris J. Scherkenbach
Post-a-day 2021
I did the second reading on Friday. My grandma’s cousin, the priest presiding over the Mass, had asked me to give a brief reason for and explanation of what I was going to do, just before I began. And so, with some trepidation, deep breathing, and many tears, I said, “My Opa’s first language was German. So, I will do the second reading in German, for him.” And then I did.
Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher
Das Schicksal der Verstorbenen
13 Brüder und Schwestern, wir wollen euch über die Entschlafenen nicht in Unkenntnis lassen, damit ihr nicht trauert wie die anderen, die keine Hoffnung haben.
14 Denn wenn wir glauben, dass Jesus gestorben und auferstanden ist, so wird Gott die Entschlafenen durch Jesus in die Gemeinschaft mit ihm führen.
15 Denn dies sagen wir euch nach einem Wort des Herrn: Wir, die Lebenden, die noch übrig sind bei der Ankunft des Herrn, werden den Entschlafenen nichts voraushaben.
16 Denn der Herr selbst wird vom Himmel herabkommen, wenn der Befehl ergeht, der Erzengel ruft und die Posaune Gottes erschallt. Zuerst werden die in Christus Verstorbenen auferstehen;
17 dann werden wir, die Lebenden, die noch übrig sind, zugleich mit ihnen auf den Wolken in die Luft entrückt zur Begegnung mit dem Herrn. Dann werden wir immer beim Herrn sein.
18 Tröstet also einander mit diesen Worten!
Post-a-day 2021
Today, I got to hear a recording of my mom when she was 15, turning 16. It was a tape recording of a phone call for fathers’ day, and her birthday was going to be the following day. The recording started with my Opa, her father, talking to his father. He then handed the phone off to my grandma, who sounded a lot like my mom sounds. Then my two uncles went on, in age order, and then my mom. I cried, and so did my mom, when she started speaking. I somehow felt myself wanting to give that little girl a hug…
I had never heard her voice other than how it had sounded in my lifetime. I had heard people mention that she had gone off to college (at Rice), and had come home sounding all snooty (versus the strong southeast Texas accent of where she’d grown up and where my grandparents remained, even after their children had grown up and moved out). To me, my mom has always sounded like the regular Houston accent. Whenever she is with her family, she always ends up talking just like they do. However, she otherwise speaks with the extremely neutral Houston accent. (Truly, even US Americans find it hard to believe that Houstonians are from the South, because we really just don’t sound like it. Only our use of “y’all” makes it clear that we are southern.)
However, on the recording today, I heard a bright-eyed, teenage, southeast Texas girl speak with delight. I almost couldn’t hear my mom in her at all. She most certainly was southern and from southeast Texas, but I was shocked at how little she sounded like my mom.
On the second listen, though – it was only a minute or so that she was on the call – I began to find her in the girl. The way she spoke, and the intonations, the cadence and emotion – those were all clearly my mom. But that accent and voice… I could tell she was a lifetime away, unaware of what life would bring her beyond age 16 and a driver license after her drive training over the next couple weeks…
It was bizarre, but I would love to hear more from her. The tape had a whole section of her and my aunt, who is younger, singing the songs from Godspell (my uncle was in the musical back then), and I really heard my mom there, in the singing. That was super cute.
Anyway, I am wiped, and on multiple levels, so I’ll go attempt sleep, now. (It’s set to 79° in here, because my grandma doesn’t have the body structure and function to keep the body heated anymore. Apparently, she even uses a heated blanket to keep warm enough overnight… with the 79° air…) We’ll see what happens…
Post-a-day 2021
This has been a week of compliments for me. First, the perfection butt. Then, my singing and song-writing…., a few times. At a restaurant tonight – we went for margaritas, not for food -, as I was walking back to the table from the bathroom, a waitress said something to me. I thought that I must have misunderstood, so I replied with a few blinks, a frown of confusion, and a, ‘What was that?’ She then repeated herself.
I had not misunderstood.
She had said, and this was not our waitress, but one I hadn’t seen until this point, “Woah…, your body is awesome.”
I thanked her, and continued my way back to the table, contemplating my many responses to the situation.
I ended on gratitude and excitement and encouragement. 🙂
Post-a-day 2021
The visitation and rosary and family hangout afterward all went really well this evening and tonight. I kind of only touched my emotions on the sad part of the emotional spectrum, and I feel like they might kind of explode outward tomorrow…, but I guess that’s okay. Hopefully, I’m able to make it through the reading reasonably well. I’ll be doing it in German, which was his first language and our extra special bond, just the two of us. So, I shared that I would like to do my reading in German, and print the English in the worship guide. It was approved with flying colors by the ones in charge. However, our cousin the priest, who’ll be saying Mass, told me to mention what I was doing and why I was doing it just before I began the German reading… that part might just be my emotional undoing…, so, we shall see on that part. Perhaps I’ll be so nervous about its being my first reading in a Mass, I won’t even notice the emotions that usually would arise for such a statement.
Anyway, at the family hangout tonight, after everyone had been eating a while, I went around and handed out the party favors, as I called them to myself. They were pains au chocolat, the French pastry that I usually call chocolatines, which is the name used in Southern France. As I passed them out to everyone, I said on repeat, “Because everything is better with chocolate, especially pain.”
Some of them got it immediately. Others took a few seconds or a couple minutes, and got it once they realized I was repeating the same phrase to everyone, which suggested something important in the message and word choice. A few definitely did not get it…, but they did like the pain au chocolat I offered to each of them.
(The irony, of course, is that I actually don’t like chocolate. I do love chocolatines, though [pain au chocolat]).
Post-a-day 2021
At the gym today, someone asked me what I had noticed as the biggest difference from having been at the gym for so long. I immediately thought of my muscles, the obvious strength in my shoulders and arms – a strength I love to see whenever I pass a mirror -, my near constant touching of my own muscles, the shape alteration of my hips and waist and thighs, the lines (as we call it) on my leg muscles… but those all seem like small things to me, and none stands out as significantly more prominent in my mind than the rest. Perhaps it is my energy levels or my endurance capabilities. Or perhaps it is how I no longer just feel comfortable in my own skin, but I feel capable in it…, ready to take on anything, bidden or not…
I really wasn’t sure, and I thought on it for quite a while this afternoon and evening. However, when I was preparing to take a shower, I went to take a look at my body. Naked and tired from having been worked hard this afternoon at the gym – I felt like fighting someone, so I went to the gym, even though I had planned to go tomorrow instead of today – it stood its ground nonetheless. What stood before me looked nothing like a tired body. Truly, what came to mind when I saw it was simply the word, “woman”. It was woman as she was designed to be. It was the young hunter-gatherer of a clan from so many years and generations ago, when we first became the ingenious homo sapien sapien. It was Ayla from The Earth’s Children book series.
And I realized that that was the greatest difference I had noticed in myself since joining the gym. When I see my naked body now, I do not frown at the shape, nor find sorrow in the excess fat areas. I see simply woman, and I am both grateful and proud to be the host of that woman. I have worked long and hard, and I shall continue to do so, because it feels not just good but right to be this woman. This is part of who I’m meant and made to be. And I am grateful.
Post-a-day 2021
I just want to call him and talk about the stars and the planets in the night sky… I want to ask him for a detail on a story… I want to be the source of that crinkling smile again…
But that isn’t how things work.
And that’s okay.
And it’s perfect, too.
(I’m not saying I won’t cry an ocean-full over the next while, but even that is perfect and okay.)
I truly am the product of both of my maternal grandparents. My grandmother gave me the social aspect in life, the physical intimacy of her always patting a leg, rubbing a back, or indulging in deep, long hugs. My Opa, he gave me the ability and desire to step away from the action, and go do my own thing; to be not touched; to be comfortably contemplative on my own while the others gather loudly; to think deeply and analytically about…, well, about just about everything. He gave me the goofy, nerdy humor, and she gave me the sharp sass. He gave me the comfort in grunge attire, and she gave me the casual desire to out-dress expectations. I am both extremely picky and totally open to trying new things. I am artistically and musically inclined and am an utter nerd for knowledge. I want to save everything, yet have little around the house. I love with my words, but also with my actions and unspoken acceptance. The list could go on and on and on, I am sure… I know it could, and it could do so easily…. I am that much a perfect mix between the two of them.
Yes, I have my own pieces all throughout it all. Of course, I do.
However, it is unabashedly clear that I come from the two of them. We are of the same thread, and they helped to create me, as I became my own piece of the work.
Post-a-day 2021
I go to the workout today. We start with a warm-up, then move into strength. The strength work is squats, and then supersets of 60 seconds of plank and then 60 seconds of continuous Good Mornings.
I am doing the Good Mornings. My shirt was discarded a while ago. The coach (and gym owner) corrected my stance a bit at my first round of Good Mornings. Everyone is in different places around the gym, working on whatever part where they each are.
The coach comes walking up to me, doing his sideways stance, head dropped slightly, as though conspiratorially – his usual stance when speaking so that only the one person receives the information.
“I’m gonna say somethin‘…,” he begins. I am immediately nervous. What did I do wrong? Am I doing wrong? “…I don’t want you to take it the wrong way…”
Shit. I messed up somehow. What did I do wrong? Is it about my not wearing a shirt? Is it too much? Wait… other girls go shirtless, too…, though I can’t recall who at present…, but some do, I’m sure of it… maybe that I’m not pushing hard enough to have ditched the shirt, so it’s just too soon isn’t he workout to be in just the sports bra up top…?
“What??” I say more than ask, resignedly, looking at him sidelong, my face set in obvious trepidation.
He looks me in the eye, and then says, calmly and gently, and completely genuinely, “Your butt…” He makes a sign with his hand, pressing the first finger and thumb gently together, extending the others outward. It is the sign that is common for describing something, usually food, as ‘perfection’. He makes a corresponding shape with his lips, and tilts his head slightly to the side in the same motion.
My eyes gape. “REALLY???” I ask him, like a kid who’s just been told that Santa Claus wants to meet him.
He nods, reaffirming the hand motion and head tip.
Tears are almost instantly at my eyes. “You’re gonna make me cry!” I declare, eyes brimming.
He tells me not to cry, that I shouldn’t be upset – it’s something to be happy about. I tell him that I am extremely happy and that they are tears of joy and gratitude. He understands and believes my obvious honesty.
“I tell people, ‘I made that,’” he then says.
I laugh and immediately declare, “You did!… You totally did.”
After class, I thanked him for having shared with me. I have worked very hard, in many ways more than just physically these past two years. The past six months have been a near explosion of finally seeing and experiencing some of the goals I have had my entire life, regarding my physical fitness. Some of them were even just dreams, not goals. Yet they realized nonetheless. And, basically, all of it was made possible because of him and his training and coaching and support. Yes, I put forth the effort, but he provided the tools and guidance and support for almost all of the physical stuff, and a good chunk of the mental stuff, too. (He’s also the one who turned me on to Goggins, by the way.)
He also happens to be one of the fittest and, truly, sexiest people I have ever known. (No, no Eros attraction to worry about. I am merely describing his physical appearance here.) And I know how hard he works for that fitness for himself.
And he, of all people, complimented my buttocks. And not just any compliment, either. It was a You say it best, when you say nothing at all, silently communicated “perfection” compliment. He thinks my but is perfection. Sh** all else, if that is not one of the greatest and most powerful compliments one could receive regarding efforts like I have made. (Haha. I know, it’s a terrible phrase.) He knows how hard I have worked, and he helped me to see a success today that I had not known that I had.
Afterward, I took a photo from the side, just standing normally. And, wow…, I agree with him. It looks like a butt model for pants, the photo.
I have extremely high expectations for myself. It was valuable beyond compare today for me to hear such feedback from such a knowledgeable person on the situation. I have been frustrated a lot about my struggles and failures elsewhere on my body and in my performance lately. And so, it was nice to have a stellar success pointed out to me, and by someone whose opinion I cannot disregard (even if I’d wanted to do so).
Thank you, gym. Thank you, owner. Thank you, butt. And thank you, God, for this beautiful combination for my life. Thank you, all.
Post-a-day 2021
Yes, it is feeling uncomfortable in just the right, exciting way. I have trusted the feelings and pulls in a certain direction, and it has been wonderfully terrifying so far, and in many, many ways. I started karate again, because I wanted to be more like Hanna, from the Amazon series. She is utterly bada**, and has major skills on the battlefield, so to speak, and I wanted to train myself for many of those skills (but just have zero desire actually to destroy people). But it was through a series of other minor events that I ended up re-finding karate. I reached out to the head of the organization, and now, only a few months later, I seem to be fully involved in it, and not just by doing karate.
I have become an unofficial official photographer for the organization now, as well as copy-editor/copywriter, and I Love them both. Plus, I’ve been practicing for upper level belt tests, because I’m going Goggins, as I call it, and am planning for the hardest stuff, and doing more training and preparation and effort than is necessary, normal, or, even, reasonable. And I’m loving that, too.
I see where I can step up my game, and I am working toward making those improvements happen effectively. And I am delighted.
Post-a-day 2021
hannah ananas 