Bump, Set, Spike...

Today was yet another reminder of just how FREAKING FAR my life has come since just a few years ago.  Today was our first 5th grade volleyball practice.  Now, before I get started, I completely realize that I'm talking about FIFTH GRADE volleyball.  That is not lost on me.  That is also why these moments are so profound. I would have NEVER agreed to do volleyball "before."  I would have never dreamed that I could take part in something that active.  Again... I realize that it's fifth grade.  The funny thing is that I wouldn't have thought I couldn't do it, I just would choose not to, subconsciously knowing that I would have been a totally crappy role model to those young ladies (and gents... though there are only 2 out of our 21 players that are male).  It's so hard to say what I would have done before or how I felt before because I think I used to try SO HARD to ignore the fact, or at least avoid at all costs, the fact that I would not have been able to perform any of the physical tasks that I would have expected those kiddos to do.  So how would I have possibly shown skills by example or even participated along side them?  I wouldn't have, so I opted out by not opting in.  Instead, what I was able to do today was kick a little fifth grade BOO-TAY.  I ran with them, did burpees with them, stretched and warmed up with them, and finally... participated and LED a group of kids that want to be active and are looking up to me because I am active and athletic.  Shit... I'm athletic!  I never thought I would say that... but even for someone that has never played volleyball seriously before, I'm not terrible!  It's pretty astounding to see how my life has changed.  It's not HUGE things all the time, but sometimes the smallest stuff.  I'm jogging and not dying with a bunch of 10-year-olds.  I am able to work out and talk (read: yell) at the same time and by the end of the practice every last one of those kids and myself were worked out, enjoying learning skills of a game that they can enjoy through their own lives.  I'm not trying to "make a mountain out of a mole-hill here," but sometimes it slaps me in the face that, "wow... this never would have happened before."  Before.  Before I was huge and opting out.  Now I'm not huge, and I am very much opting in.  I have done a lot of things and experienced a lot of things.  Geez, even the other day, one of my little friends in my class had "escaped" into a very confined litle space and before I wouldn't have even thought to try to get in there to talk to him to get him out of the place in his head that made him want to be so isolated.  Instead, I shimmied my not-so-tiny, but not-so-huge body into behind a wall to squat and quietly talk to a kiddo that needed some calming words from an adult they knew cared about them.  I am present.  I am present in a way that I didn't know I wasn't present before.  I don't know if that makes sense... but it's not like I was knowingly even NOT being present.  But now that I am actually there, and active, and excited, and happy... I come to realize those moments that would have gone down an entirely different way because my physical self inhibited my mental self from really getting "down and dirty" with the things that come up in my life.  I'm not running around every day from revelation to revelation... but seriously... do you think this girl could have done this?  I'm just so proud.  I'm proud to be where I am and I'm also just so proud of who I'm "allowed" to be now that I have more confidence, more awareness, and simply more ability to be.  The picture on the left was almost two years before to the day of the picture on the right.  The left was lounging, happily, I might add, in my parent's pool.  The one of the right is near the conclusion of my first, and hopefully not my last, Warrior Dash.  Not bad.... not bad at all.

Today food was sort of a "non-issue" because it was SO BUSY!  From school, to volleyball practice, to visiting a bestie with a new baby, to home, to dinner, to snuggles with a semi-sick kid, to bedtime to this... I'm wiped and food was whatever what was in front of me.  Thanks to my hubby today because he made sure I was well-nourished to do anything and everything I wanted to do.

I shoved into my belly:
Breakfast:  A DELICIOUS omlette of mushrooms, peppers, and spinach with a side of avocado.  Also, a bowl of sliced bananas, raspberries, and shredded unsweetened coconut.  Yummmmm!
Lunch:  I SNARFED some leftover chicken veggie soup and some carrots.
Snack:  Grapefruit.  Still yum.
Dinner:  Leftover pork carnitas on greens with peppers, avocado, carrots, beets, and some salsa "dressing."  Finished with some raspberries for "something sweet."