Defeated

I am a generally a positive person.

Not one of those chipper, smile at a funeral, “isn’t life just the bestest ever?!?!” type of positive. No, those are the type of people that you have to wonder what type of drugs they are taking. But, I can usually find the silver lining in a storm. I have found that if you let it, the Universe will get to you, so it is best to head it off at the path and not let it win.

But every once in a while, storms collide and I can’t find a silver lining. It is sometimes even too hard to look for one. Thankfully, moments like this are usually short lived, but it doesn’t make them any easier.

I had one of those moments last week.

I had a meeting at work that really (really, really) got to me. I went on a roller coaster ride through the seven stages of grief. By nightfall, I had settled in on a mix between anger and depression (I didn’t say it was a steady roller coaster ride. It was actually more one of those “Whirl-A-Ding” machines where your car flips in circles around a circle that is also moving in a circular manner, just to make sure you get amply motion sick so when you get off, you wonder why you were on it in the first place.)

I have friends and family that were trying to point out the silver lining for me…”look there, you can see a glimmer!” Even though I saw it, I didn’t really want to admit it, so like a petulant child I folded my arms, frowned and said in a whiny tone, “I don’t see anything…”

Universe: 1, Shannon: 0

It is never a good idea to go to bed in a negative state, but short of staying up all night, I didn’t really have a choice, so to bed I went in full-on pity party mode. I had some fitful dreams, and when I woke up I felt it right away. I was defeated.

Universe: 2, Shannon: 0

I dragged myself out of bed and slowly got dressed for CrossFit while I tried to think of a valid excuse to miss it: Food poisoning? Nah, I’d better save that one for a special occasion. Sick? Nope, the Universe is already winning; I don’t want to tempt its friend, Fate. Overslept? Lame. I couldn’t think of one valid excuse and so slowly gathered my things and headed out the door.

At this point it is important to preface that there was a winter storm that blew in the night before. Everyone was in a tizzy about it because, this is Texas, and we aren’t sure what this “winter” is that the rest of the country talks about.

So I head outside and am immediately greeted by freezing cold. That didn’t make me feel better. The steps looked a little wet, so I decided to slow-go them to be on the safe side. The cynical me that had taken residence in my brain said, “that would just be the icing on top of the bitter, bitter cake I’ve swallowed.” I didn’t actually have time to finish that pessimistic thought though, because at that point, I slipped on some ice, flew into the air, and fell down twelve steps.

(Later, when I regained a sense of humor, I would think about how ironic those twelve steps would be if I were actually in rehab. But I digress.)

Universe: 3, Shannon: 0

Stunned, confused and, of course, still defeated. I sat in my crumpled, just-fell-down-a-flight-of-stairs position thinking 3 things: 1) Did that actually just happen? 2) Did I hurt myself? 3) I wonder if this is a valid excuse to get out of the workout.

I didn’t have too much time to think because apparently, a fall down a flight of stairs makes quite a ruckus, and the neighbor that lives below me came out to see what had happened. It’s January, not December, so clearly I couldn’t have been Santa Clause.

Well, this just reached a new level of embarrassing. Can’t a girl fall down a flight of stairs in peace!?! Now I have to be humiliated by the presence of another person.

Universe: 4, Shannon: 0

“Uh, are you OK?” he asked. It was very nice of him to try and hide his smile.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I just…um…fell.” I responded in my best leave-me-alone-I-am-about-to-die-of-humiliation voice.

“Do you need help with anything?” He said, eyeing the bazillion bags that I take with me on CrossFit mornings (my purse, my bag of meals for the day, my giant gym bag for getting dressed at the gym after CrossFit, my jacket, my other gym bag that I bring to work in case I really need to blow of some steam at the gym after work (it is much smaller, and I don’t need to carry the giant one that contains all of the tools necessary to make me look like a presentable human being)).

“Umm…nope…nope…I’m fine.” Please go away! Doesn’t everyone know that the one time you don’t want a Good Samaritan is when you fall?!?

So I gather my bags and walk in my best see?-I-am-not-hurt manner, which is really hard to do when you are trying to mask a limp.

Too humiliated to turn around, I head to workout, where I show up late (falling seemed to have eaten into my travel time). It wasn’t until after I got out of the car that I really felt any pain. And then I noticed that I had skinned both of my knees and that both of my ankles, especially my right one, hurt. Great.

Universe: 5, Shannon: 0

But truly, the highlight of my morning must have been during warm-up, when the Universe vs. Shannon tally really got to me. I was mad at work, mad at stairs (all stairs mind you; not just my icy apartment stairs), mad that I was hurting, mad that I couldn’t justify an excuse to miss the workout, mad at myself for trying to think of an excuse, because clearly working out was not my problem, and mad about being mad.

I couldn’t do a twist. The absolute easiest part of the warm-up hurt my ankle the most. And on the third rep when I couldn’t do it and was asked if I was okay, (oh the humiliation!) I started crying.

Hate is a strong word, and I try not to use it too liberally. But there are a few things that I truly hate, and crying in front of people is one of them. It doesn’t bother me when other people do it, but I personally avoid it at all costs.

Universe: 10, Shannon: 0 (crying is worth a lot of points)

Somehow I made it through the workout (with a modification, which didn’t do anything to improve my mood). At the end of the workout, I just sat there. Unhappy about life, the fall, and about the workout – both that it was modified and that, when all is said and done, I know I could have done better.

Universe: 11, Shannon: still 0

But thankfully, that’s when I snapped out of it. I just couldn’t feel sorry for myself anymore. It’s really much more exhausting than one might think.

Sure, I didn’t have the best CF workout ever – but it felt good to sweat things out. And yeah I fell, but it could have been a lot worse. I managed to escape with minimal bleeding, some bruising, a bruised ego, two strained ankles, and, let’s face it, a good story.

Ha! Take that Universe!

Universe: 11, Shannon: 1!

I guess the Universe took that round...but I suppose we can’t all win all of the time.

Me < Coordinated

I am not a coordinated person.

I come from a long line of non-coordinated individuals. I am lucky in that, compared to other members of my family (*cough* older sister *cough*), I absolutely seem graceful and synchronized.

People would talk about my family’s epic klutziness, and I categorically disagreed with them! Sure, Jordan is a klutz; she sealed her own fate when she tripped over nothing and broke her wrist on the world’s most gentle fall. Brandi, my younger sister, can’t help but to be uncoordinated because by the age of 12 she had more hip surgeries than most people have….ever. And my twin sister Tiffany, well it is hard to be coordinated when you are suffering from chronic fatigue and are tired all the time.

But I was sure that I had been lucky enough to dodge the klutzy gene.

Then I went to college…..

No one in my family went to college with me, so there was no bigger klutz to hide behind.

Sure I denied it at first, but after a few instances like, oh, I don’t know, falling out of a canoe a few dozen times on a float trip that resulted in calf covering bruises that were as black as my mood when I find out we are doing burpees (seriously. I do not like those.) Or perhaps stepping off of a curb and spraining my ankle. That was fun to explain to the coaches. Or missing a step when walking down the stairs and landing on my back side. Or stepping on an icy patch and flying into the air before crashing down on my left arm. Or…well, that’s enough. No need to get into the other three years of college.

So you see that my coordination, or lack there of, is really a problem. (Yet, I insist on tempting fate by wearing 3-inch heels every day to work. And yes, I run in them because I’ll be darned if I miss a pedestrian crossing sign just because of footwear.)

So far I’ve been able to pretend that I am coordinated in CrossFit. But today I was unable to hide it. And I became frustrated.

I don’t like not getting things. That’s why I hated Chemistry. It is still a mystery to me. All of it. It wasn’t from lack of trying: I did before school tutoring, after school tutoring, private tutoring, Chemistry for Dummies, help in study hall….none of it worked. To this day I am sure that my chemistry teacher passed me out of sheer pity. I could fake an English paper with the best of them. I would write “A” papers on the symbolism of a book’s title with out ever cracking the spine. I get BS. You can’t BS Chem. lab.

I have learned that Kettle bell snatches are a lot less like English papers and a lot more like Chemistry. I don’t get them.

I have a theory that because I am tall (5’11”) that my brain has trouble sending all of the coordination details to every inch of my body. That makes sense, right? But it is still frustrating!

So on the kettle bell snatches, the coaches are like “No, nononono…do it THIS way.”

Ummm…that’s what I thought I was doing.

“Punch the air,” they say. So I do.

“Well, you almost, sort of have it. But you have to swing with fifteen more Newton’s of force, and then with a forty-two-point-six-five degree bend in your arm, twist your wrist at an acute angle and then, while you twist the kettle bell at the rate of fifty RPM, punch the air like you mean it.”

Ooohhhh. Is that all? And to think I thought it was difficult….

I guess there is a possibility that maybe, someday, the stars will align and heaven will shine down on me and a heavenly choir engulfed in bright white light will sing “Hallelujah” as an angel bestows upon me the gift of coordination.

Ha! Between that and the Kettle Bell snatch….I definitely think the heavenly choir will happen first.