Part 2: NO WAY!!!

Part 2:  NO WAY!   I couldn’t … I couldn’t do it.   But I also felt like I couldn’t tell Dr. Jack either.   I emailed him and just said I didn’t think I was ready for that kind of move.  I had no desire to seek out a gym membership or any trainer at all.  I wasn’t interested in anyone pushing me beyond my limits.  Don’t want it, not going to do it. I am sure he must have been shocked at the other end.  I mean after all, I am the patient who follows the directions to the letter of the law.  Tell me you want me to something ten minutes a day? I am in twenty.  So who was this person?  This is so not me!

I wrote to him, explaining I was not ready. I told him, I am not coordinated, I won’t do well with this, I had a hundred reasons, just none were the truth of the matter.    He read what I wrote and sent a reply.  He told me that we could just table the discussion and I felt relieved ………..but then he included a phrase that is one of the biggest motivators he uses with me.   (Don’t tell him that! … I don’t want him to know.   It seriously lights a fire inside me that I feel compelled to act on.  As he knows, don’t lay a challenge at my feet, because I will have to prove you underestimated me.  And of course he must know that, because he used it at that moment. )   His reply?   “You are right, maybe you will be ready in a year or two.”   Groan!   That’s the phrase…..ughhhhhhhhhh……Every time he does that, I swear my eyes narrow and my fists clench because now I have to PROVE to him that I can SO do it!  I am such a goof.  I can say can’t all day long but let someone else say it and stand back!  And when he says it or my friend Mark says it, I am like on fire!!  I have to prove them wrong!!

I took a few minutes to think on the whole thing.  It was at that point I decided what was the difference if I told him.  If he understood it, he would let it go, right?  We would be done discussing it.   I wrote to him and explained what had happened.     He listened patiently, but his reply hit the nail right on the head, “You will see, eventually, that you are so much more capable than what you are giving yourself credit for. Keep a smile on your face. You have made such incredible strides that you should think about that all the time!!!”

That was it. That did me in.  All that hurt suddenly found its way to anywhere it could escape.    The flood would be contained no more.  The pain would not be squished back down inside.   I sat down in my room and sobbed like a four year old whose puppy got taken away.  I had hit that tiny little room in my heart that I keep hidden away from the world.  Inside there is a lot of pain, pain I just don’t share with people.   The door was open and I couldn’t slam it shut no matter what I tried.  I had to tell him all of it now. And I mean alllllllllll of it.   Forgive me for not sharing it all, I just can’t, but that was the thing that helped him to totally understand why I was so obstinate about the whole thing.  It wasn’t just one thing, it was the whole package.

That was a tough day for me.   I felt completely emotionally drained.  All this hurt that I had kept silent just poured out.  The pain was as much physical as emotional.  And I went to bed exhausted and worn out.  But at least the pain was gone.  I had opened up and was taking my chances.  I sent Dr. Jack a text that I would be fine and he responded that I was already fine, with a great deal of support.  I think I fell asleep clutching that phone.

The next morning, I got up and ready for work.  My phone beeped with a text from Dr. Jack.   It was a picture of a woman with a note.   He told me that she was a Pilates instructor and he wanted me to contact her.

I sighed…… This wasn’t going to be easy……

Part 1    Part 3     Part 4  of this story