Fear

My 13 year old niece had a crush on a boy at school and spent many afternoons talking to him and growing more and more fond of him.  One day she came home and said to my sister, "Mom. I think I am going to wait until I'm older to go out with a boy".  

"Why?", asked my sister.

"I just get too nervous now, and so I'm going to wait until I am older so I'm not nervous anymore."

Of course my sister called me immediately to have a good laugh and claim that her child was actually meant to be mine.  Good luck Sister!  The nerves - they never go away, and as I get older they only get worse.  

Needless to say, the dating thing still makes me want to vomit with fear.  I tend to be a bit neurotic and am not really sure how I don't have a full blown ulcer at this point.  I think I was always like this with dating though.  I was never one of those girls who could walk into a room and fling my hair back with a smile while looking glamorous holding my cocktail and balancing perfectly on 3 inch heels.  I tend to wear flats because I would be the opposite of poise while attempting to look cute and would knock something over while simultaneously walking into a wall.  

**Side note here: you think I am kidding but while pregnant I had to repeat over and over "Do not walk into the pole.", and wouldn't you know it I walked into it every time.  I also fell over several times while pregnant, but now I am digressing.  Back to dating or said fear of dating.  

You would think being in a long term relationship and having a child would give me the experience and confidence to date anyone at any time.  I think in fact it has had the opposite affect on me.  I feel most days like I have been stuck in a time capsule at age 25 and suddenly let out at age 36.  So think about that for a second - just think about yourself at 25.  Well, maybe some of you reading this were those put together coeds that always had the right lip gloss and knew the exact way to triple cross their legs while commenting on some Philosophical debate of the moment.  I was not that 25 year old.  I was the one who dressed in sundresses and dumped the contents of my bag onto the street in order to find my keys.  I was fun and spontaneous but not smooth and confident.  I often fell for the artsy sex God who was never completely free and NEVER stable.  So I was in a way always safe - no dating required.  I was 25!! I did not have anything stable.  I was an "artist".  I had no roots and no responsibility.  I think I was temping and subletting and had a cell phone.  So that was me.  

Then I got into a relationship and things changed. Here I am somehow 36 and the opposite of who I was in every way.  My life is now firmly rooted with extreme responsibility.  Spontaneity is grabbing blindly in my closet at 5:15am for clothes to leave the house in.  And now I need to date? WHAT?! It is a whole new world and I am getting use to it slowly, but something tells me I will still be unable to eat, and I will continue to be a bottle of nerves until I am long into whatever relationship the Universe has planned for me.  

Oh Yeah - that "not eating thing" is not me being a cute girl that is me trying not to vomit from nerves. Just FYI in case any future dates are reading this ; ).

So I find it only fitting that todays exercise be :

TEASER - ON THE BOX 

Equipment needed (reformer - or other apparatus that is equally terrifying)

• Lie on your back on the long box with hands in straps
  
• Tailbone should be about 1 inch from bottom of the box (no place for head)
  
• Begin legs in table top (90 degrees), arms out to side, palms facing forward
  
• Inhale tuck chin to chest, exhale push into straps and curl up to Teaser position (legs will straighten out reaching through toes and hands will press forward to toes palms up working through serratus muscle with lots of length through fingers and toes)
  
• Now here is the key to perfection....You will LOVE this
  
• Teeter on your SITZ bones while reaching through fingers and toes and open chest to wall in front, slightly tuck pubic bone upward and look toward the toes (you should look like the letter V)
  
• Don't forget to smile....Oh! and remember you are 3 feet off the ground with straps trying to pull you backward
  

Sounds impossible but everyone who comes through my door has stared this thing down and done some version of it- maybe not to the Pilates Perfection but enough that they find inner strength and determination to hold a version of this exercise without crashing to the floor - I haven't lost one yet : )