I am in bad shape and it’s not my fault!  Time for a break in the hard work.   I was very, very wrong about that ‘taking responsibility for your feelings’ idea. I’m a mess and it’s not my fault.  My condition is the responsibility of a certain personal trainer….who tied me down, drugged me, and forced me to lift things. I’ve seen him working with other people and he’s definitely got serious problems.  Probably his father was a ruthless, cold man…and now I’m paying for it….I think the personal trainer shouldn’t have suggested I do another rep. In fact, I think maybe he’s a sadist.   Either that or I didn’t take charge, let my Emotional Guidance System decide my pace. 

Dateline:  Imaginary ‘hospital’ bed in home office.  Definition: my regular side of bed, but with every human need within reach. Which means it’s pretty crowded in here with my laptop, remote for the television, remote for the overhead fan, remote for the alternate DVR….chips, salsa, two Cokes, three glasses of ice, Exedrin, bottles, Crazy Dog, Crazy Dog’s pink monkey, her ‘baby’, her ‘jingle bell’ ball, her squeaky penguin, her purple hippo, the yardstick for scratching Crazy Dog when her snoring block out all other sounds…and a dozen pillows arranged to shield my joints and muscles from movement.  

Once more, instead of governing my life according to ‘best thinking’ and painful mountains of past experience…when caught in the HOVER ZONE...that place between the cookie that was just enough and all the others…the place where the light turns yellow, you know you should hit the brakes, and you hurry on through…the moments of indecision before you hit the ‘snooze’ one time too many…for me, the hover place occurred at the gym between the moment my body screamed, “Stop! Sure, you’re impressing yourself and keeping up with your partner…but stop!  If you keep going you are going to pay. You’ve done this before, many times, always with the same result,”…and when I’d gritted my teeth and said, “Sure, no problem at all.”

Come to think of it, my husband was there.  Why didn’t he stop me?  I think my current state is his fault. 

The hover.  The Emotional Guidance System.  Without it none of us would be overweight r afraid or smoke or drink too much or even do too many reps because you (I) couldn’t say, “You gotta be kidding” to the twenty-year-old guy at the gym who made the suggestion….but these aches and pains are not all his fault.  I think the personal trainer gets forty percent responsibility, the husband gets forty percent, and that chick in the spandex shorts-bikini who trots from one machine to another gets ten percent responsibility.