Fun in the Shower

Blog Post Entry - Monica Rae

- April 15th, 2020 -

Growing up, my mother would make me my favorite meal on my birthday. Bacon sandwiches, two over easy eggs and German Chocolate cake with coconut frosting. Just the thought it of still makes my mouth water. I know how the kitchen smells when it’s cooking and how the bacon melts in my mouth between the slices of toasted bread and a thin layer of mayonnaise. There is no separating the emotions that drive my physical response to such a meal. There is also no denying my love affair with food.

I learned I loved to cook in my mother’s kitchen. I would get lost in recipes and the process of putting meals together. To this day, food excites me! I still bring muffins to friends who are sick, and I still insist chocolate is a daily required food group!

Food and I have always been tormented lovers. Just when I think I can control my cravings, maintaining a sort of dominant dance with my partner, I succumb to its allure, how it makes me feel—for a moment.

A couple years ago, I went to see my doctor. Recurring pneumonia episodes had left my already frail immune system in a state of heightened alert. But something else caught my attention that day—the number on the scale. I knew I wasn’t obese, but I also knew I was overweight. How did it happen though? Just 3 years before I had been the same weight I was out of high school! My doctor and I discussed how if my eating habits hadn’t changed then chances are my metabolism had. Further testing revealed I was pre-menopausal. I realized I wasn’t satisfied with myself, with my body and my mind. I was functioning, going to work, raising my daughter and caring for my home and animals. But I wasn’t at peace—in fact, I was dissatisfied with myself.

This all may sound a bit boring. That’s fair! I mean how many other women are writing blogs and books and posting pictures on Instagram about their mid-life body changes and attempts at wellness. There is a reason so many of us click on advertisements for the newest or fastest way to trim the rolls babies and chocolate cake have left on our bodies. If we can’t relate to a post, we stop reading. If it isn’t tangible, if we can’t carry the words like a purse, they fall on deaf ears. Like so many wellness blogs, books and tips I have read over the last couple of years, there are steps to achieving the desired result. The process of wellness is both cathartic and consuming!

But where is the fun?

Shortly after I had hired a trainer, I was doing weekly workouts at home and the gym. And after a long day at work and 50 minutes of sweat the last thing on my mind was cooking (although food was always on my mind!) I went from hating it to longing for it and crying over what I knew I had to rid myself of. SOLUTION: frozen meals! I purchased a stockpile and after coming home from work one day and hearing my daughter’s request for the dinner menu I taught her the fine art of microwave cooking! I was exhausted, needed a shower and in 4 minutes our supper would be ready. I told my daughter I was going to take my meal into the bathroom with me. She looked at me in confusion. Her look seemed to say, “First you join the gym, then you rid our house of junk food and now you are taking food in the bathroom.” I took my frozen, high-protein broccoli and beef meal into the bathroom and decided that day to do something I had never done before. I ate in the shower!

There I was almost 40 years old, in my shower, eating my microwaved food and I was smiling! For the first time in my wellness journey I was having fun!

Why had I never done this before?

Well, probably because I was raised to eat at the table, like most people. I was raised in an Irish Catholic family where meat, potatoes and dessert were required—but you oversaw how much bread you added to your plate. Butter was followed by mountains of jam and vegetables were tucked beside your potatoes as an afterthought. You were expected to clear your plate because it was breakfast, lunch or dinner—not because you were hungry.

Wellness, I discovered goes hand in hand with aging. The more I reflected upon what I cooked, how I ate and why I reached for the mug cake at 9pm each night the more I realized it was truly in my power to make changes. Midlife crises unfold because we are nervous and scared. As though a number dictates our abilities and passions. We either become complacent and afraid of change or we check in with ourselves.

Are we where we want to be?

Are we doing what we want to do?

My diet became more than just losing weight and walking 2 miles most days. Hiring a trainer (something I never thought I would do) was a catalyst to trying yoga, kayaking, shooting a gun, eating chislic for the first time, planning a trip to Ireland, and publishing a book, among other things.

How does any of this relate to weeks and possibly months in quarantine? Because really, isn’t that what is currently consuming most of us? Initially, you might view the word quarantine as being confined even limited. And sure, in a way we all are!

Or maybe—it’s another opportunity.

Recently, I got the phone call that I would be laid off from one of my jobs for a few weeks. I hung up the phone, glancing at the list of chronic to dos—the laundry, dishes, vacuuming, correcting of math papers and sweeping out the garage. No doubt I would be adjusting my house budget that evening, but there was something I needed to do first.

I cranked up my daughter’s latest playlist (a bit of Birdy, Imagine Dragons, Katy Perry and Lauren Daigle) and I got on my treadmill and jogged until sweat poured down my back and gratitude covered my fear!

Next to my ever-present list of chores I have a new list—one column titled ‘gratitude’ and the other ‘new things to do at home.’ In fact, if you drop by my house on Tuesdays and sometimes Fridays, you may find I’m having supper…in the shower!

DEDICATION: This blog is dedicated to Jan Edwards. “I carry your friendship and words like a purse…over a lifetime, over the miles. Your presence inspires me to live fully.”