Then it hit me.
While driving my daughter home from school today she proclaimed, "When I get older I am going to do a back flip." I replied with the acceptable amount of enthusiasm expected from my bossy four year old. There was a count of one, two, three... then.... "Can YOU do a back flip Mommy?" To which I proudly answered, yes, that when I was younger I could do a back flip into a pool (really I could do a back DIVE off the diving board, but tomato tamato). I told her that her Pops had taught me when I was little. She thought about this and announced that she believed her father could do a back flip into a pool, TODAY. (I am pretty sure he can't, but I kept that to myself.) But it made me smile both to be faced with her hero like worship of her father and to remember my own teaching me to do something so. cool. As I drove home I continued to think about that back dive. The best thing about it was not the actual act of it, but that from coming from me, this ordinary girl, it was so unexpected. I remember going to the IBM pool with my grandparents one summer up in New York. I walked up to the diving board. There were a bunch of older boys hanging around the base of the diving board, doing what older boys are great at. And so I turned around, back to the water. I can still remember those boys huffing, No WAY. And so I bounced, once, twice .. up and over, back dive into the deep. And I still remember smiling, not because I did anything fantastic (I am pretty sure it was one heck of a messy dive) but that no one would have guess I would be able to doing something as close as I did to that dive, and the truth was, I could.
Monday at the gym this happened to me again. I had finished my workout, phase one with my sister and phase two on the treadmill and walked over to the assisted pull up machine. Where they have the machine in my gym your back is to the world, so you have no idea if people are watching you. I raised the assistance bar and grasped the handles. I pulled myself up unassisted. ONE. Lowered myself back to the step took a breath and pulled myself up again. TWO. Lowered myself once more, breath and up again. THREE. And once again. FOUR. I turned to hop off the step and notice an old man laughing in my general direction. Not out of rudeness, but honest surprise. I had made his day. And it is not hard to guess what he expected to see when a relatively tiny non threatening thing has the guts to forgo the weighted assistance on the pull up machine. As I passed him he looks at me and goes, "You did that with no help." And I smiled at him and told him my Army husband loves pull ups and our home pull up bar broke so I am trying to get back in to doing them, but yes, they were all me. I told him not to be too impressed though, as I can only really do one. He was shaking his head and laughing still as I walked away. It was the same as that back dive from so long ago- it really was not anything overly impressive but it was unexpected. And that makes all the difference.
And so my new year advice to you is to do just that. Challenge yourself. Be and do the unexpected. When you believe you can only do five do six. When you truly think all you have is a 4 push and give an 11. We all have this in us. All it takes is heart and we all have one of those.
If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.
Emile Zola
