Hot Mama

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom act as one with our very souls.

meno·pause· (men′ə pôz′)
noun
the permanent cessation of a woman's ability to bear children, when she questions her sanity in every having them in the first place---ME


I get up most days and go to the health club at 5:30 a.m. To make it easier, most of the time I just sleep in my work out clothes. I know my own mentality at that time of day, and I have used any excuse there is not to leave the comfort of a warm snugly bed. It's too cold, I'm too tired, I'm too happy laying here, it's raining outside, it's foggy outside, it's nice day outside, my feet feel toasty, the dog is comfortable laying on me or the coffee smells really good, and I need to lay here and enjoy the smell. You name it and I have taken it as a reason. I either have to set the clothes out on the dresser all ready to go, or I have to sleep in them. Some days, I think my pink polka dot jammies would make excellent sweat pants. I may find out if they do yet.

So I get up, throw on socks and sneaks, grab the Creative Zen and keys and go. I drive the half mile and run upstairs to the club. I walk in the door, grab a rubber band in the pen basket, tie my hair up and zap in my membership card. I hop on my favorite ellipitical machine, crank the tunes to the max and begin. I don't really open my eyes or my brain until I have released all the pent up hormones raging inside me. It's a wonderful thing to be sweating so hard people think tears are running down your face; your shirt is sticking to you, your hands are falling off the handles from the river running down them and you think there can't possibly be any more sweat inside you until bam!--a hot flash hits you, creeping up the neck and drenching the last possible strain of hair that isn't wringing wet. Heat from hormones mixes with heat from exertion and becomes volcanic.

I push harder on the machine, punishing it for this impossible feeling overcoming me, the heat, the sweat and most of the time the overwhelming need to cry. The hormones are raging, pushing and pulling me, filling me simultaneously with angst and hot sexual need. I ride higher and faster, stomping, straining, running; ignoring the pain in the knees, the sticking of the joints, and most of all, ignoring the desire to just lay down and give into the hormones. I carry on, filling my mind with erotic images while my body protests that it is no longer 18. I push while I pretend to dance, glide while I transport my mind to an earlier time and age.

The minutes tick by as fast as the years. Where was I when I met him? Who was I with? How did it end? I work to burn off the energy and take my brain to an even plain, a place where I am still in control and my body listens to my commands. I ride hard to lose the anxiety, the stress and the fear. Will I ever feel that joy again? Will I ever be a rising star at work again? Am I doing a good job as a Mom while I feel so out of control? When will it be about me again and will I be ready? How long with this ocean of desire last? And do I want it too? I ride to enjoy and ride to forget. I ride to make it through the day.

Finally, the energy spent, I return my brain to present day Mom, the one who has to plan the day, run the house and organize the fun. The one who does laundry while cooking breakfast, defrosting dinner, packing her lunch and putting on her work clothes. The one who leaves the house an hour early to drive her kids to choir practice and flag football. The one who puts on her makeup while waiting in traffic. The one who somehow holds it together while being ignored at work, pretending life is good and smiling at everyone, when she would rather scream , "Don't you know how I feel??? Are you really that stupid?" The one Mom who loves her life, her kids and their every changing lives. The one who feels the heat and laughs at the world. The one who secretly smiles at cute guys thinking, "Red Roof Inn, 5:30?" The one who hears the hormones rage in her teenagers and thinks, "I can relate."