Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

A random act of kindness visited on me many years ago.

A small, but huge gesture.

It was during college. I was a new mom, and at my heaviest weight. It was during the years that neither parent had anything to do with me.

I have mentioned that I have not seen my dad in thirty years, but there was a decade-long span in there where my mom didn’t speak to me either.

To top it off, I was in an unhappy marriage. One I had gotten myself into to escape a bad home life.

So on this particular day, I was overwhelmingly encapsulated with sorrow.

One look at me was all it took to figure this out.

I can still remember the outfit. The bottom was the only pair of pants that fit, and the top was a man’s size XXL white cotton T-shirt. Hair unkempt and unwashed. No make-up.

I was failing college. Failing as a mom and wife, and failing at life.

And on this particular day I had taken all I could take.

I remember the long walk back to my car in the commuter parking lot.

As always happens when you look your worst, I ran into someone I knew. A guy, or course.

I got to my car and hurriedly climbed in. All I could do was hang my head on the steering wheel and cry like a baby. Actual sobs.

And the tears would not stop.

And there was no one to turn to. Neither parent. Not my husband. Not even friends, because I always hid my misery from them. They simply did not know the depths of my sorrow.

So I cried.

Then I started the car.

In a daze I began to drive.

For over an hour I drove and cried.

Toward the end, I pulled up to a stop light. Although it is not red, I stop.

And I sat there. Through how many lights, I just don’t know.

There must have been an angel of patience behind me, because I know the man behind me sat through two or three red lights with me.

And never once did he honk, cuss, flip me off, or even wave.

When I shook myself out of the moment and realized where I was and drove on, he just went on too.

A random act of kindness, just when I needed it most.

A lesson I have carried with me almost 20 years now.

So when someone crosses my path today who does not act the way I want them to, be it at the grocery store, at work, or even the gym, I will remind myself they may be in the midst of their worst day.

And I will never know who that man was, but I try to repay him every once in a while with my own random acts of kindness.

As I walked by, I noticed it was blinking.

Three missed calls.

With excitement I looked down to see who…might…be….

Jonah.

It was my youngest.

He called at 5:42….and 5:44…..and….well…..5:45.

Persistent little booger he is!!!

I have told him repeatedly, “Just call once; I’ll notice one call just as quickly as I’ll notice seventeen.”

The funny thing is, he was asking me if I could pick him up from church at 9:00, like I have done every Wednesday night of this entire school year.

We have this conversation every Wednesday between 5:00 and 6:00.

This is always followed by, “Are you sure? Is it OK? It’s not too late is it?”

Consistently and without fail I give him the same answer.

“Jonah! There is no place I would rather you be. You know that. Why do you ask me every time?”

“I don’t know.”

And he doesn’t know.

But we all have things like that. Things we know to be consistent and true, but we don’t allow ourselves to remember them.

Jogging works.

Lifting works.

Eating clean works.

Gym buddies make the best buddies.

Yet there are days we let ourselves forget these things.

So, I will remember to pick Jonah up every Wednesday at 9:00 and you remember what you need to remember!

Washing clothes, unpacking bags, finding a place for souvenirs, and… opening my souvenir bag and laughing my booty off at a tiny green souvenir that made its way into my possession!

Some things we get. Some things we choose. Some things just make their way to us!

You see, I was at one of those little shops where you can buy keepsakes with your name on it. Trust me when I tell you, none of my names are ever on these things. Adina Yvette Zanolli. I am 0 for 3 there!

But I still like to look!

You never know!

OK, I DO know, but I still look anyway. Can’t tell you why. It’s like search, search, search, “Yep. Still not there.”

And then I go on.

But I knew the name of the man I love would be there. So I took off looking.

The first thing that caught my eye was a tiny little green flip flop that had his name, in rainbow letters no less, and “I” with a little red heart in front of it.

I mean to tell you it was tee-niny tiny, y’all! It made me go, “AWWWW”….

So I stopped what I was doing and sent him a text.

And guess what he replied? “AWWWWW”

So that made me giggle, and I guess I just never put it down.

The boys picked this place to get their Las Vegas souvenirs, so I had a little pile of odd things. Dice. Mugs. Cards. Things for their dad and step-mom. Things for cousins and grandmas.

And as the cashier started checking me out, I saw that little green shoe get scanned.

And it’s not even a key chain, but it has a little loop on it.

Maybe it’s a zipper puller thingy? I just don’t know!!!!

But I didn’t stop her, because it just wouldn’t feel right to say, “Unscan my love and put it back, please!”

So there I was last night unpacking.

And there was that little green shoe.

And again it made me smile and say, “AWW”

So I’ll put it somewhere silly, and it will remind me to send a silly text to him every now and then.

And in much the same way, I leave reminders for myself.

Gym shoes here, reminding me to run.

Gloves over there reminding me to lift.

Before picture – don’t eat so much!

After picture – eat some!!!!

Workout log – keep improving.

Simple items, but they are all really notes from Adina to Adina with love! They may not be little green flip flops, but they are certainly reminders that I love myself and am worth the effort.

Adina’s little green flip flop would say, “I HEART my healthy lifestyle”….in rainbow letters, of course! Because my life IS a rainbow!

A few days ago my boys had never flown, never been to Vegas, never ridden public transportation, never, never, never…. The list of things would go on and on and on!

Not even six months ago, my oldest told me he would never fly.

I knew it was time for a big vacation, as we have never really been on one. As a single mom, those things don’t happen much!

We started through the list of things to do and one by one he said, “Do I have to fly?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t want to do it.”

But it was by chance that he mentioned one night, “Man, I’d like to go to a UFC fight in person.”

“Find out when one is, and we’ll go for our vacation?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Within thirty minutes he emerges telling me, “UFC 98 is in Las Vegas. Can we go?”

“We would have to fly.”

Without a moment of hesitation, he comes back with, “I don’t care.”

He didn’t even think about it, y’all!!! Not even for a moment.

I expected him to get nervous as the day grew near.

Nope. Not a bit.

As we boarded the plane?

Not even then!

You see, he wanted to go to that fight so bad he was willing to conquer a fear to get there.

And Jonah was not going to let us go to Vegas without him, so he had to rise to the occasion as well.

He was nervous, but it’s funny the things you can still do in spite of being nervous!

Whether you conquer your fears or go on in spite of them, either way you end up in Vegas!

Fourth grade.

My dad had been away from us all summer long.

He was due to come home, and I was so excited!!!! Three months is a long time for a child to go without seeing her dad.

The morning drug on.

Then the hour of his expected arrival.

The hour passed, and I stood there.

Two hours.

Then three.

Then it was bed time, and still no sign from him.

And I still stood there.

Thirty years have come and gone since that day.

He never did show, nor did he call.

The last time I heard of him, he was stopped for a traffic ticket in Las Vegas, Nevada. By this time I was pregnant with my second child.

He was told he was listed as a missing person, but as an adult you can choose to remain missing.

And he did.

But life goes on.

And in just a few days I will set foot in Las Vegas for the first time in my entire life.

That was always the place.

The place he chose over me. He had always said he would run to there, and that ticket says he did.

But that is not why I am going. I am going to celebrate 16 years with the grandchild he has never met, and 13 years with the one who was in my belly the last time I knew where he was.

And when I get off that plane, for a split second I will wonder if we are breathing the same air. Are we both in this place?

But whether we are ten feet or ten thousand miles apart, we are not breathing the same air.

The life he could not face, handle, or deal with is the life I cherish, embrace, and enjoy.

And when I’m at that fight, between two boys who love me, waiting to see gobs of Vaseline packed into open wounds, I will wonder what it must be like to miss out on every good and simple pleasure this world has to offer.

I will peer at the face on either side of me and marvel that this brings them joy.

And then I will smile and have no regrets, because what more could a girl want than to be so loved?

I have no control over the hand I was dealt in this world, but I do choose whether or not I fold or I play.

And I choose to play….hard!

And I better get to see some serious blood at that fight, y’all! I’m not here for my health!

My boys were not born with good genetics. They have no ability to shop whatsoever. As future men, they were born missing the shopping gene.

With the trip to UFC 98 just a few days away, I decided to take the boys shopping. Separately, of course. I’m not stupid. The only thing worse than taking a guy shopping, is taking two guys shopping.

Day one was Micah. We walked into Old Navy. He found the dark khaki cargo shorts and we bought three pairs. He won’t wear the light ones or the frayed ones or the drawstring ones. We got no shirts, because as Micah put it, “I have some.”

Boy, that was fun. Can’t wait to do it again.

Day two was Jonah, and into Old Navy we went.

I directed him to his section of the store, but he looked confused.

“Not the bikinis, son. Walk farter. Look farther. Breathe. Think.”

“OHHHHH.”

“It’s a pretty safe bet I’m not going to steer your toward women’s swimwear. Now, go find something and I’ll be along to check you out.”

“I don’t need your help. I’m old enough to find my own stuff now.”

“Good. Being as I’m buying, I’ll still be checking.”

So I give him what I think is ample time before I go off in search of him. I round the corner to find him holding up a tee-niny pair of shorts.

“Look. I told you I could do it.”

“Son. That’s an eight. You need a twelve.”

He looks at me in horror as I hold up what seems monstrously big to him.

“Look how LONG those are.”

“That’s what you need. Trust me.”

He holds the eight up, and I can tell we’re going to battle. So I simply say, “Alright. Go try them on….and show me.”

I follow him, because it is my job as him mom to torture him.

The boy was bound and determined to get the shorts on. I could hear the struggle. Then, “Mom?”

“Yes, son.”

“I need a bigger size.”

“Why don’t you let me see?”

“I don’t want to.”

“No. I think you need to. Just to make sure.”

The door slowly opens, and there stood my boy in all his size eight glory!

Without cracking a smile, I say, “How do they feel son? You need to sit down and make sure you can bend. Can you breathe in them?”

“You know I need a bigger size.”

“No. You need two sizes bigger.”

“Mom!”

I pulled the bigger size from behind me. Of course, I had brought them with me.

But it was funny after we put our bags in the car to hear Jonah’s thoughts. “I don’t understand. They looked too big, and that other pair looked just right.”

And I said the only thing a mom could say. “Jonah, if you always go by looks, you will have an empty life. Some things will look too hard. Some things will not look fun. It’s not until you try it that you now. Even with people. Some people look snobby, but they’re shy. Some look mean, but they’re focused.”

And it even works that way in the mirror, y’all. Take a good look. It may look like you’re ready to give up….but you’ve got one more try in there.

Size eight…eight pounds….eight reps… whatever you need. It’s there. Just look again. And then stop looking and start doing.

I saw one recently that did…

Third grade was such a miserable year for me. We had moved for the sixth time in my short school career, but this was the first time we had switched schools in the middle of the year.

I remember the lump that formed in my throat when I went to check out of one school and get my belongings; and the overwhelming feeling of panic at the sight of the new school. I was petrified in my fear.

My first day at the new school was so miserable that I grabbed my lunch kit to go home at recess thinking the day was over. With dread and embarrassment I took it back to the classroom, a single tear sliding down my cheek as I put it in the slot.

How could the day not be over? How could there be two more hours in this wretched ,horrible day?

As with any tragic girlhood memory, there was a mean girl. A girl so insecure with herself that bringing others down was the only way she can make herself feel good.

She was hateful, and I was scared of her.

She didn’t know that we had been evicted from our house. She didn’t know that memories of policeman telling us we had to go haunted my thoughts and at that the mere sight of one, I became physically ill.

She didn’t know that I would go home unsure of whether someone would be there and if there would be food to eat.

And certainly she didn’t know that I had seen more porn at that age than many adults ever will. I am sure she was blissfully unaware of what porn even was at only eight years old.

She didn’t know that school was my refuge, and that she made the one bearable place in my life unbearable.

But there was this one bright spot.

I had been allowed to order one thing from an Avon catalog. A little perfume bottle. It was a cat wearing a flowing ball gown.

A tacky thing of beauty I named Miss Kitty.

I had no other beautiful things. She was my only treasure. I left the house with nothing else, and I loved her the way only a child loves her favorite toy.

And I just knew she held the key to my acceptance at the new school, so it was with hope that I brought her to Show-and-Tell.

Just as I suspected, all the girls loved her. She got passed up and down the rows. Even the mean girl thought she was cute.

So I took her to the playground with me for recess where all the girls wanted to hold her, and where the mean girl promptly dropped her.

She shattered into a million pieces, and I erupted into tears.

I was not to be consoled, nor was I ever allowed to order from that catalog again.

The top had not broken, as only the bottom was glass. For weeks I tried to find something to make due. I put that top half on every bottle I could find, but none looked like a dress.

I cried every time I looked at her and finally had to let her go. What good was a half? It was no longer a thing of beauty. It was just a thing.

The mean girl never apologized. She was just what she was. Mean.

She was one of those who had everything, having no concept of what that little bottle meant to me.

We moved from that school a few months later.

I grew older, and never thought about that school again.

When you get moved around a lot you throw up walls of protection fortified with indifference. You learn ways of protecting yourself from the mean girls of this world, or from anybody for that matter.

But a few weeks ago I found myself in one of those junky, hole-in-the-wall antique places. You know, the sign says “antiques” but the merchandise screams “junk”!

I just love those stores!!!!

As I rummaged along the aisles, I came to a shelf filled with old, junky perfume bottles. We’re talking junk, y’all. Not fancy bottles, just empty ones.

But peering at me from behind those bottles was a sight that immediately brought tears to my eyes.

There sat Miss Kitty in the midst of all that trash, as if she was waiting for me to find her.

And the wounded little girl who lies dormant in my soul reached out her hand to take that precious bottle from the shelf.

And that little bottle now sits next to my Sponge Bob alarm clock! A place of honor, as the clock was a gift from my son.

She doesn’t mean the same thing she once did, as I am grown and I know love. I give it, and I receive it from the three people dearest to my heart. Two boys and a man I love with all my heart multiplied by three.

And what once was a symbol of the only lovely thing I had is now a reminder of where I came from, and not where I remain.

Been there. Done that. Got the perfume bottle!

“Yes, son.”

“We can’t ever feed Kevin, Abby, or Ellen eggs.”

Kevin, Abbey, and Ellen being chickens, I wasn’t really thinking about scrambling them some eggs, but “OK, son. I won’t feed eggs to the chickens. Got that one down for the count.”

“OK. Because they’ll like it if you do. If you pull it out of their butts and feed it to them right away, they’ll eat every one they lay from then on, because they’ll like it.”

“You seriously think I’m going to pull an egg from any of your chickens’ booties?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seriously?”

“OK, no.”

Ten seconds of silence ensued before he hit me with, “Some people, in some countries eat coagulated blood.”

“I feel enlightened.”

“Are there really not any words that have a ‘q’ without a ‘u’ after it?”

“None that I can recall, son.”

“Why? That’s stupid.”

“So we can have words like ‘quiet’ and ‘quit’.”

“I got that, mom. That was rude.”

“I wasn’t trying to be any other way.”

“Did you know that in some countries they eat cheese with maggots? What’s cheese cloth?”

“You went to the library today, didn’t you, son?”

He grinned and pulled a book from the back seat entitled, Children’s Miscellany.

“Jonah, you shouldn’t talk to a delicate lady such as myself like that. My ears might be offended by all that grossness you are spewing at me.”

And y’all are going to love this…

“Mom, you’re not a lady.”

And he laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard in his life, and I’m thinking “Dear God, what did that child see?!” But that’s another topic which we shall not be covering!

But my curiosity got the best of me, and I had to ask no matter what the answer might be.

“Jonah?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Why do you think I’m not a lady?”

“Well, duh, mom. You go to the gym like 24/7. Nobody who goes to the gym like you do is a lady.”

He pauses and thinks for a minute.

“Yeah, mom, there’s no way you’re a lady.”

So y’all…I just need you to know I am not a lady, and I am PROUD of it!!!!

But when I cut my toenails next to him while he’s eating breakfast in just a few minutes, he’s going to wish he hadn’t said that. I mean, I’m not a lady, so my boundaries are like WIDE OPEN! And every gross thing I do to him today will be followed by, “because I’m not a lady!”

Paybacks are tough, y’all. Paybacks are tough.

Good thing I’m not a lady.

I stay pretty perky more of the time. Y’all know that. This perplexes most

But I don’t really

I did think about it a little longer than usual the other day when someone said, “Don’t take the easy way out and say you motivate yourself.”

I thought about those words for a while. I answered right away, but it’s been weeks and I still remember that question.

What it comes down to for me is this: how sad to think that inward motivation is an easy way out. It is a prize. A reward for blood, sweat, and tears.

You see, I’ve been on the other side.

You don’t get to be the size that I was because you are inwardly motivated and happy. You have to fight for any little scrap or piece of it you can get.

The first time I took off running I was still 256 pounds.

There was blood from the blisters of feet not accustomed to running, sweat from the work, and certainly many tears shed.

Tears of embarrassment. Tears of regret. Tears of remorse. Tears of suffering.

And thank goodness, tears joy.

I remember going through years of agony in an obese body searching for motivation.

I looked in magazines and catalogs. I looked in books. I searched and searched through TV programs till the wee hours of the morning. I looked at the mall. I even looked for it in the E-mails people would forward to me.

But there was none to be found.

You see, none of the books said, “Adina. Get off your butt.”

“Adina, you weren’t meant to be fat.”

“Adina, no matter how many years you went without hearing ‘I love you’ there is love all around you.”

And certainly none of them said, “Adina! Wake up, sister. You are doing this to yourself. You won’t look back one year and wish you had stayed here longer!”

So, yeah, the motivation did come from within.

It was that very first time I heard, “Let’s try this one more time” coming from inside me.

I was the only one who could say, “Put the fork down. Go to the gym. Breathe. Move. Run. Participate in this life.”

Far too many years I waited for someone to light my fire, when I was the one holding the match all along.

So when I pondered whether or not finding motivation from within was the easy way out, I came to the one and only conclusion there is: it’s one of the hardest things I ever did.

But it’s also one of the most joyful.

You see, when my alarm went off at 4:00 this morning, I didn’t wait to see if I was motivated.

I leapt from my bed into my Nikes!

I did the happy clap and grabbed my favorite energy drink as ran out the door saying a prayer for the four people I am most thankful for in this world.

And the guy who asked me would never understand my answer, because

Because everything is better now than it used to be.

And what greater motivation is there than that?

None that I know of!

And for anyone still struggling to get there, you already have everything you need. You just have to dig in a little deeper and find it.