Family
When Tory (tjzundel on Bodyspace, and my husband) decided that he wanted to train for a triathlon, I was excited - probably a little more than he wanted me to be - and delighted to join him… and push him a bit. I didn’t realize how much this would change our lives - day to day and looking at it from a "bigger picture" perspective.
We have two young children - a 6 1/2 year old son, TJ, and a 4 year old, Meg. Throughout my young adulthood and college, I struggled with body image issues. My senior year in college, I weighed approximately 91 lbs and wanted desparately to be thinner. Finally, a counselor threatened me with hospitalization if I dropped below 90 and I was somehow able to ’snap out of it’.
I am constantly conscious of how I may impact Meg and hoping desparately to build her up so that she never takes that road. I work hard to praise her for her intelligence, creativity and for being a "big, strong girl!". I want her to associate "big" with goodness and strength; I want to "fill her up" with positive thoughts and energy around being strong and smart and creative so that I can help her build up a much needed fortress to protect her from the zillions of ads, and other media attention that may cause her to question her self-worth based on her waist-size and hip size.
I had no awareness at all that my training for this triathlon would impact little Meg the way it has. She now tells me (almost daily) that she wants to be "fast like mommy". When I go out to walk the foothills with her, she runs them, because she sees me running for my training. It’s adorable to watch her four year old legs motoring down the trail - and to watch her as she throws her head from side to side - quite convinced that this will help her go faster! I didn’t realize what a big impact this would have on her. I am quite grateful for it.
(TJ has always loved running; he continues to but quickly tells us, "but I don’t want to race"… I think this really means, "I don’t want to lose." … I’ve been thinking long & hard on that one and how to help him realize that there is no losing in racing; we only race against ourselves - so, we really can’t help but win.)
One final note on family: I wrote to my 73 year old father (who had a quintuple bypass within the last 5 years) and told him that I am training for a triathlon. He responded with, "that’s great. I finished my first one last year. I came in last, but I finished it."
May 21, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Your father is an inspiration! Very cool. Great blog post.