I find myself looking through other blogger's oldest posts looking for the backstory. You know, the "where did they come from and how did they get here" type of thing. It occurred to me that there might be a time where someone might actually be interested in my backstory. If nothing else, it allows me to reflect on the last 38 year of my life (which given it is the week of my 38th birthday seems appropriate).
It is bizarre to find myself here - 38 years old, wife of 16 years, mother of 2, business owner, and a slow/fat triathlete. I grew up super active - dance classes multiple times a week, always out on my bike or just simply running around. I was super skinny - crazy skinny. I just burned it all off quicker than I took it in. I never really did organized sports (other than some really lame attempts at lib league softball in high school with my church friends). But from age 3 to age 14, I danced everything from ballet to jazz, tap to point, and whatever else I could pick up. I loved it. It was a safe place to be away from my less than happy home. I even studied one summer with the Missouri State Ballet. Although it was this summer that I realized I would never be anything other than a "hobby" dancer. I just didn't have the body for it. And with some pressure from my uber-scholastic father, I gave it up. I remember thinking at the time that I would still be plenty active and could always run myself through my own dance class at home and get in my workouts.
But then high school was in full swing and I got busy with school and soon work to save up for college with a little time for boys here and there. I remained thin, but was slowly less active than I used to be. Still had killer dancer's legs (so my boyfriend said) and missed it terribly, but I didn't step back into a dance studio for a long time. Then I started at Mizzou in the engineering program. I never worked so hard in all my life at school. It had always come easy to me before. But suddenly, instead of the one who sets the curve in the class, I was - at best - in the middle of the pack. It was very humbling. And then I wasn't going to be able to renew my scholarships (gpa issue) so I had to start working to pay for it. Between schoolwork and working between 1 and 3 jobs, and then a boyfriend on top of that (dated my husband all through college), being so poor that ramen noodles and I were on a first name basis - eating well and exercise just went out the window. I did however take one dance class my senior year where I found out that those 30 lbs I gained in college and the car accident I had the middle of my freshman year had really taken away a lot of my flexibility.
My first date with my husband was my 18th birthday. I was 5'7.5" and 110 lbs. I rocked a denim miniskirt with a purple t-shirt and cute little Keds-knockoff tennis shoes. I held his hand so tight through what has to be one of the worst movies of the summer of 1991. When we married in August of 1995, I was 140 lbs and barely 5'7" (car accident actually left me shorter!). I was no longer "the skinny girl", but I wasn't quite the "fat chick yet".
---End of Part 1---
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