Sixteen-year-old self

What does your 16-year-old self think of your life? This came up in a comment on nevers' journal and turned into a thing I've asked a few people since then. Here's mine.

--------------------------------------
My sixteen-year-old self, who we will call F16 from now on, is only somewhat disappointed.

It's important to get back in her head, and remember how single-minded she really was. So the first and important thing is that this older lady, still shockingly recognizable around the face and hair area, went to MIT! She really did! It's a little odd that she settled in Boston, but this "Boston" place seems a nice enough city, and oh so very far from Montana. This older lady never went back! She really got away!

F16 also is happy about this capacity to do the splits: eeeeee, oh wow, I really did it. Though... it took me how long? What!? Ugh. Also, that was supposed to happen in pursuit of a black belt, what happened? What happened to the black belt!? It is surprising and discouraging that martial arts turned out to be a less-than-two-year thing, at which I did not excel or even persevere exceptionally; though yoga and circus are not disappointing, and in fact this handstand stuff is very cool and fascinating to her already. (Check out those acro pictures, too. Older lady appears to have friends, with whom she has fun!)

F16 is horrified at my still getting zits. Like, ever -- she is not appeased by the drastic reduction brought about by cutting out dairy. She really thought that such blemishes were things a person didn't have to deal with beyond age 22 or thereabouts.

Never had kids. Oh interesting.  F16 is unsure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, having not come to strong conclusions yet on that matter. But having donated eggs to E and V, that makes her laugh out loud in sheer delight: what a story! Amazing! The way she liked E last year (he was in fact her first date), and the way all the hurt disappeared when he came out to her, this is all fresh in the mind of F16 and she is pleased to find this character reappearing later.

The biggest disappointment is surely around money and career and stuff, though this is all messed up and contradictory: the older lady, she sees, earns far more than she thought possible on a yearly basis, and yet does not live in an oceanfront house, nor did she make a fortune in the stock market, nor does she have a particularly exalted position in a company. F16 (in good company, frankly, along with F21) thought that advancing through a career would be easy, that she would excel as she did in school, that it would be like advancing through a series of empty rooms (that's how it was for Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged, after all). But this, it seems, was not the case. Why not the case, older lady? Why do you have only a dozen-person group at work, instead of an empire? What happened?

(Working in software is clean, though. So clean. Older lady never has grease under her nails, and wears reasonably nice clothes, and the condo she lives in is spare and open and not at all built out of fenceposts. It's very good, too, that she owns it outright.)

That cat looks like a little snow leopard! What is that thing? Ooooh. :D

Polyamory is a strange concept for F16. It's important to note that she's wildly hormonal, so she gets that part -- and she has been introduced to some challenging concepts in this area -- but she's overly in love with Tomcat and therefore currently unable to imagine being attracted to multiple people. (In fact, oh, heartbreak: learning that something goes wrong with Tomcat, that F17 will go off to MIT with tears in her eyes and there will be no inter-college sex visits, this is going to be a very difficult thing for F16 to get past.) Taking the long view, though, F16 is pleased to have gotten married and to have gotten the chance to -- in real life! -- act out many of her kinky fantasies. Being tied up and whipped in front of a roomful of strange people in NYC while some random person held her feet? That's going to, I mean, that did, that really happened? F16 laughs in awe. This is good enough to overcome the weird, she thinks. And it's quite okay with her to have slept with a couple of ladies on the way.

These seem to be the big things. It's not as bad as I thought it might be. There's disappointment around martial arts, not living in a tremendously fancy house, and -- almost inconceivably -- not staying with Tomcat. But it doesn't seem like a bad life overall. There are good surprises in it, and my MIT dreams came true.

Reasons for fitness training; ideas around benchmarks for '17

You guys, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing with fitness and athletic stuff anymore. I just put together a little montage of things I did in 2016 and, well, it's fun but kinda random. With no flexibility work in it. :(

Here's what my friend Chelsey has to say, and I love it:

Have you thought about what needs you’re trying to satisfy by training in your sport? Does it make you feel special? Are you looking for a challenge? Does it help you connect better with your peer group? To get the gears turning, here are a few reasons (in no particular order) why I am so serious about my training:

• I love the way my body looks when it’s muscular and lean. To be a sexy, sculpted, goddess is a non-negotiable standard I’ve set for myself.


• I demand a high quality of life for as long as possible, and having strong muscles and bones mitigate the effects of aging.


• I feel happiest when I’m active, in some way, shape or form.


• My body and brain crave physical challenges because they help me grow, and this growth brings fulfillment to my life.

Be dirt honest with yourself. The better you understand what makes you tick, the more effective you will be...

She's talking about injury recovery, but she had me at the part I quoted, and sometime on the airplane I decided doing the same (and, in fact, writing most of this post) would be a worthy exercise. I can't quite use the word "goddess" non-snarkily as Chelsey does, alas... but here is my own attempt.

• I love using time to my advantage, being better today than I was last year. When I do this, I feel like a growing being; it makes me feel hope for the future and satisfaction in my life choices.


• Workouts give me an entirely separate venue from work (two venues!) in which to belong, get positive external feedback and experience community.


• I also demand a high quality of life for as long as possible. I want a pain-free old age, and I want to become only more badass (in comparison to my peer group) over time. I may be slightly unusual for 39, but my goal is to be an outright freak at 60.


• Training gives me mountains to climb and, importantly, an venue for achievement that feels meaningful and isn't tied to work.


• The focus and catharsis of working out is the only way I keep my shit together most weeks.

Yeah. That's a lot. And with that in mind, it's clear that maintaining a good level of personal strength and flexibility is key for me. If I let those things go in the service of partner skills, I'll stop feeling like a growing being, and I'll lose some of my joy. At the same time, I do want mad skillz, you know some of the ones, and I want to put video of them on the Book of Faces.

So for '17 I'm leaning toward setting some minimum benchmarks for myself, ones that I will make a commitment to maintain no matter what additional skillsy stuff I may put most of my time into. (Some of these I have right now, others I need to gain or regain.) My plan is to physically put a piece of paper on my office wall with a column for each, and write down what day I last did the thing; if it's ever more than a couple of weeks between doings of any one, then I'll know I need to focus on not losing it. All these are things I'd love to improve on someday, but certainly don't want to lose.

Current ideas include:

• Splits: 30s in a touched-down position on both sides.


• Pancake: Belly to floor (briefly during reps).


• Pike: cheekbones to shins, if only briefly.


• Squats: My body weight, six reps on a bar.


• Pistol squats: 2 sets of five on each side.


• Chin-ups: a set of five from a dead hang OR 30 sets of Ido style 2x2 in 30 min.


• Backbend: chest touching wall OR a back kickover or walkover.


• Backbend: drop back, stand up.


• TGUs: 50lb or maybe 55lb each side.

I wonder what I'm missing, and if I should add some prehab/rehab stuff in there. Cuban rotations for my rotator cuffs at 18 or 24lb, for instance, and knee circles, maybe?

The routine(s) I'll need in order to keep these things are yet to be discovered. Pancakes take 2x/week but I already do that; I need to get better at splits practice as well in order to hit this bench mark on the right side, and some of the others are currently iffy. Still, I think this might be a good adaptable approach.