Yoga, Pizza and Sea Urchins

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays. Every day for the past month. That is me, and it's mainly because I have been studying for the Bar exam. My hubby sacrificed his old dining room table where I've set up shop with about 2,245 flashcards and books that have become nondescript in their monotony.

To start my Monday (did that word come from "monotony"?), I roll out of bed and pad downstairs, pour some coffee (Ghiradelli chocolate-flavored that he bought me), and trudge through studies until honey comes home.

But I write tonight because honey has done something that makes me completely with angry at him solely due to my own lack of self control. I speak, obviously, of pizza. He knows that I have no control when it comes to that discus of grease, fat, dairy and sugar. The fault is all mine though because I had no dinner prepared, so of course he brought home frozen pizza as dinner.

I had been so good all day. Had Special K for breakfast and then salad for lunch. Only ate a couple of chips with salsa when I was hungry, pulling the all-too-familiar "I have been healthy all day so this doesn't count" justification.

Two hours later, angry at myself for letting my butt stay on the couch while I ate three pieces of pizza, I got on my yoga mat and did about thirty minutes of vinyasas. I even pulled out my five pounders and swung them around, hoping that my shoulder muscles would feel the exhaustion in the morning to prove I'd burned some calories somewhere.

And then, just now, I saw a photo of someone's poorly grilled vegetables on Facebook. Mellow looking squash with onions probably greased from pan non-stick spray and salted into oblivion. My hubby has Master Chef on TV, and I notice how each contestant has added asparagus to the fish and sea-urchin dishes. And I thought, gross.

I was that kid who grew up eating spinach souffle, brussel sprouts and broccoli without complaint. But now I realize that, while I appreciate my mom's instillation of desiring green with every meal, I don't have to eat it if I don't want. I'm a grown woman, dammit, and I refuse to eat snap peas, soggy zucchini, and celery.

I look over at my husband and silently thank him for letting me eat those pizza slices and letting me calmly practice my yoga in the corner in that bright orange yoga shirt he hates. I smile at him, willing him to look back at me so that we can have a "moment" of loving understanding, but his eyes are glazed over. Probably from too much pizza.

How being married will finally show me how to have fun.

You can say that I was a goody-two-shoes. But what I really was was a kid who hated getting into trouble. I remember conferring with my cold seventh grade science teacher to say that just because I had been talkative with a boy in class did not mean that we were an item. (This a result of a precipitating conversation with my mom about how a) I did not want Mrs. D to think poorly of me for disrupting class, and b) I especially did not want Mrs. D thinking I disrupted class because of some boy.) If a teacher ever called out my name for any reason other than to give an example of excellence, my ears grew red and I felt hot tears fill my lower eyelids.


I am still that girl today. Whether a boss thinks that I had given her the wrong information via email (which I had not done), or a stranger honks at me while I cross the street (I had the right of way), I hate someone thinking that I've done something wrong. It is that fear of (anyone thinking that I'm) doing anything wrong that has choked my instinct for fun.


I never understood the people who could be late, be forgetful, and be indifferent. "What is expected of me" is my constant worry. Why break rules when it's just as easy to follow them? Yet, I found myself jealous of the kids who could get away with just about anything (my brother, being one of them). Was it a natural gift to not care? or was it the gift of lying? I am a horrible liar. I can't even not-lie but keep a secret, which I know would cause me to lie later on....


Exhausting, is what it is. I've never been in jail, picked a rose from a neighbor's bush, broken curfew, or missed a meeting (on purpose). College brought some sign of future relief when I could finally "skip" class because everyone expected me to. But at the next class, I swear I saw the professor furrow his brow and mark in his ledger. "Ah ha! I never noticed that girl before, but now that she skipped class, her presence is abhorrently obvious." Oh the anxiety.


I was salutatorian of my High School class and Vice-President of the student body, a National Merit Scholar finalist, and a grant recipient at my top-ten college. In two weeks, I graduate law school (an average student) at the not-yet-ripe age of twenty-six. And I just passed the Moral Fitness Application of the California State Bar.


But in eighteen days I marry my best friend, and what I look forward to the most is being the bad kid I always never wanted to be. I imagine us cutting corners and drinking milkshakes on a Tuesday. If anyone shouts at us for jaywalking, we can just smile and hold hands. We're married, so who can blame us?


This blog is a way for me to re-examine my past anxiety and live a new, free life with my partner-in-crime. So get ready for some FUN (dammit) adventures to come.