Lobsters, Life Coaches, Bikini Bottoms and Living A Life I’m Proud Of.

I love my pool. Truly, madly, deeply.

Well, I guess it’s not technically “my” pool, because if we’re going to be technical, I live in one of like 300 condo’s and we all got a pool key along with our lease.

At least I thought we did, but I’m not quite sure because nobody is ever at my pool. In the summer. On the weekends, even. I’m fairly perplexed by this because the pool is freaking amazing-secluded and hidden by trees and a WATERFALL, but yeah, always empty. No screaming kids, never any obnoxious pool parties, or creepy guys. Although, when Kathleen was here and I was super excited to show off my pool, we went at 11 pm only to find a couple boning above a lobster. Boning. Above. A. Lobster.

The girl half of the couple turned out to be one of my sister’s (ex) co-workers. AWKWARD. And the lobster? I don’t know what to tell you. At first I thought it was a really big leaf, but Kathleen was all, no that’s a lobster, and yep-lobster. When I put a picture of the lil (but not THAT lil!) guy up on twitter (because this is the kind of fun stuff I do on twitter) Patty immediately said, “Oh it’s Sebastian” which made me laugh and start singing Under The Sea.

Anyways.
So, I know I live about 10 minutes from the beach, but in the summer I prefer my pool. I don’t like tourists, or aforementioned screaming kids and creepy guys and so my pool has been my second home this summer. Last summer I didn’t want anywhere near a bathing suit, so I didn’t know the amazingness that was right around the corner.

I had a phone call with a life coach* on Tuesday afternoon. Chew on that for a sec.

And, because my condo is “quaint” and my sister was home, and my dog likes to bark at the worst times and my tan lines were fading-I thought, hey I’ll take my journal, and my pen and have this uber personal conversation at MY pool, and yay for getting my life in order and I am so smart and cool and I’m on my way to AWESOME-VILLE.

Yeah, so have you ever noticed that RIGHT when you start thinking how smart and cool you are that life is like, “Muaahahaha let’s fuck with her! YAY! Silly Liz!”

Off I go to MY pool, fifteen minutes before my phone was supposed to ring, carrying my cute pink (and very unused) journal, my favorite pen and my blackberry and silently patting myself on my back for being so SMART and COOL to think of this plan, a bit nervous about how this call was going to go-basically, it was the life coach/client equivalent of a first date, eager to put my towel down, get comfy and be the girl who takes important meetings at the pool because hey hey betches, she’s so smart and cool and her life must be AWESOME.

I notice the gardner first, but no biggie…I choose a chaise lounge far from him. Then I notice the other gardners hiding in the bushes, working or something annoying. (THE NERVE!) And construction workers. And pool men. I hear the sounds of power tools and see the sparks the things make going against the other things. (Those ARE the technical terms.) At first, I actually think they’ll stop. Like, call it a day because the smart and cool girl is here and we’re being too noisy for her and her awesome life. But nope, they keep power tooling and yelling and disrupting my serenity. MY pool. I quickly realize that this is not going to work-there’s no way I can have a phone call with all this GD noise in the background. No worries, 7 minutes to walk back home. As I’m walking through the pool gate, all the sprinklers randomly come on. Not like normal though, obviously one of the serenity killing power tool yielding awesome life ignoring pool men gardner hybrids has cut the wrong cord and there’s no way I can walk through that. I can’t get my phone wet. And my hair. Priorities.

NO WORRIES.
I’ll walk the long way back to my front door. I forgot to mention that when I go to MY pool, I don’t wear a cover-up. I just wrap up in my towel. So, towel wrapped around me, I’m hustling towards home. I don’t want to be WALKING when she calls me, how lame would that be? Like yeah, I knew you were going to call me at this specific time all day and I couldn’t even manage to be STATIONARY? Nothing screams I need a life coach more then that. I quickly realize that all this walking, this movement is causing my bikini bottoms to start drifting down, down, down, towards my ankles. See, I’ve lost a significant amount of weight but have yet to invest in new bathing suits or summer clothes because I’m 1. not done and 2. buying summer clothes is SO boring. Tank tops, sundresses and even my beloved rompers just don’t thrill me like leather jackets and boots do. But I digress. So, my bikini bottoms are too big, plain and simple. And bikini bottoms aren’t like underwear, as in they DONT STAY UP. So there’s the totally smart and cool girl, dodging bees and wasps (screaming), clutching her blackberry, journal and pen in one hand, trying to pull up her bottoms and hide in her towel with the other, laughing at herself, walking/shuffling as fast as possible because it’s TIME! She’s supposed to call and I’m not home yet, and I’m losing my drawers and…

She calls. And she’s lovely and listens to me verbally vomit for about an hour, and asks the right questions that get me thinking and after rambling on about money, and the fashion industry and jobs and weight loss and men…I pause. It seems to hit me out of nowhere, this overwhelming need to tell her this, to allow someone else to know what I truly want, and what I’m so petrified I will never have-because the money, and the cool jobs and the skinnyness and the men-no biggie, been there done that, I’ll do it again…but this? This is the hard stuff.

“I just…I just want to live a life I’m proud of.”

And it’s almost like time stands still for a minute, like I stop breathing but I’ve never been more full of life at the same time, and this overwhelming calm comes over me when I realize what I’ve said, and more so, that I truly mean it.

I realize that I’m a hot mess, that things are falling apart, that I’m empty inside where I used to be full, numb where I used to feel so much, that I am completely and 100% tapped out. I realize that while I am pretty fucking smart, and amazingly cool (tosses hair), it’s not because I am laying out by the pool, laughing, taking notes, LOOKING LIKE I HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER and putting on a show for my life coach. I realize that all the sillyness and insignificance of my teeny pool adventure, wasn’t really that silly or insignificant at all, at least not for me, that for an organic and REAL conversation to happen, a new beginning, a harsh (but kind) look at myself in the mirror-trying to appear being smart and cool, even just to myself, would have hindered me.

So, I’m letting go of that girl, of trying to be her-because, let’s face it, I’ve never been her anyway and constantly trying is exhausting. I’m the girl who’s bikini bottoms are falling down, I’m the girl who’s blackberry went flying across the cardio room at the gym the other day, I’m the girl who cheated on her diet yesterday and made those cheese and crackers my bitch, I’m the girl who doesn’t know where I’ll be next week, next month…and even thinking about next year is just too terrifying at this point.

I’m also the girl who truly wants to live a life she’s deeply proud of, and as we discussed on the phone, I don’t know what that looks like right now, and starting the journey to figure it out is scary. I don’t know how to get there.

But I know that I will. And in the meantime, I’ll buy bikini bottoms that fit.

It’s like Frou Frou said…”It’s alright cause there’s beauty in the breakdown.”

*Dolls, this is probably the only time I am going to mention my life coaching-it’s a deeply personal thing, and I’m just getting started-there is a lot of work ahead of me-but anything worth IT takes work, right? Right. xo

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