Burn on Reentry

Coming back to Earth after a week on Mars has been a STRUGGLE. In no small part evidenced by the fact I first typed that sentence on Monday and now it's Thursday and I still haven't finished the post to publish it.

At first it was fine- we pulled in our driveway about 10:30 on Saturday night, unpacked the car, tucked the kids in bed, had all the bags unpacked and ourselves in bed by midnight. The drive was long, but it went well and I expected to jump right back in the swing of things on Sunday morning. But then I couldn't sleep. I was on pre-DST Mountain Time and we'd been going to bed at midnight every night. I now fall asleep around 2 a.m. and it's killing me. After a day in the car I thought it would feel so nice to do my regular Sunday morning hot yoga class. Get warmed up, stretched out, feel all zen going into our last day before reality hits on Monday.

But no.

First I couldn't fall asleep and then I couldn't wake up before 8. I signed in for a 10 a.m. class with a new teacher, still totally sure this was going to begreat. I got in the room and it instantly felt too hot. We started to warm up and I was already counting down for the break. My heart raced when we were doing things like standing in mountain post (you literally pretend to be a mountain. not even an arch. a nice tall straight mountain.). I was dizzy. My balance was terrible. Standing Bow was like a game of I'm a Little Teapot. All I wanted to do was lay in savasana. I persevered, taking more breaks than normal, wondering why my throat felt like it was closing shut and my cardiovascular system was running a marathon up a mountain pose. The new teacher never opened the doors so we didn't get fresh air and that did not help. Finally, with 30 minutes remaining, I had to leave the room. I have never left the room. They tell you in the beginning "you're only goal is to stay on your mat" and I DIDN'T STAY ON MY MAT. I failed hot yoga. I sat down on the floor of the hallway and tried desperately to find my breath. Ten minutes later I found it again, and I went back in to do a few stretches and steal an early savasana until the end.

So it was not quite the joyous detox of my usual Sunday morning yoga, but I figured I was dehydrated and tired from the drive. The day moved forward, with some grocery shopping, laundry, and a lot of sitting on the couch and wondering why I couldn't see any red rocks. It was crazy to think about returning to work. I've never minded working, but do you know what is SO much more fun than going to work? NOT GOING TO WORK. It's kind of amazing. And now that the kids are older and less dependent on their routines and sleeping in their own beds, it didn't even feel all that great to be home. I mean, it's always sad that vacation is over, but usually you can feel a little nice to get back in the groove. But we had our groove in Utah. I apparently had way more of a groove in Utah. In Fort Worth I am grooveless.

But we marched along. The kids went back to school, Cora cheerfully ran into her preschool, James dug back into his one thousand emails. By Tuesday night I'd survived two days of not wearing my new Lululemon hiking pants and was driving to a 7:00 Orangetheory class that had sounded like a super good idea on Sunday morning before I knew hot yoga was going to almost kill me. I was still falling asleep around 2 a.m. each morning and was not particularly excited about High Intensity Interval Training, but I was signed in and would forfeit the fee anyway, so off I went.

And omg, I was kind of a mess. On the run intervals I kept decreasing the speed instead of increasing it. We did concentration curls and I stared at my weight, genuinely curious about why it wasn't curling towards my shoulder. I mean, I'd sent the signals from my brain, but my biceps were just silently laughing while I looked at them in confusion. It didn't feel as bad as hot yoga- it actually felt kind of good to move again, but I was not impressive. And then my heart rate monitor zeroed out and my screen went to grey, basically pronouncing that my heart had stopped, and I had a moment where I was sad that I wasn't burning calories anymore. I possibly had MANY continuous moments-possibly minutes- where I lamented this, while still running my heart out at a misleadingly slow speed before I remembered that since I was still moving, I was in fact still burning calories, regardless of what the screen said. Oh. Right.

Then late Tuesday night, after I'd survived my class and not felt nearly as victorious on my drive home as expected (I played the smooth stylings of Mark Wilkinson instead of yelling along to the sassy Meghan Trainor "No" song, if that's any indication), I got a text from a barre teacher- she's sick, others are sick, can I please sub her Wednesday class? Oy. But I did and it was good. It was actually my most impressive performance so far this week, but only because I could take official-looking breaks to "check form" and turn up the music to cover the sound of my gasping. My legs haven't shook that much since my first class.

So now I know that despite having an active hiking-filled spring break, I am somehow COMPLETELY out of shape in all forms of exercise I was doing a mere 10 days ago and might as well have been sitting on the beach drinking gallons of daquiris for several years in a row instead.

On the upside, everyone else has adjusted fine and the kids and Cora have school off tomorrow for Good Friday. Last night while the big kids were at swimming, Cora and I enjoyed the beautiful evening weather out on our new patio. She climbed up and down from the bench, jumping off with the gusto she brought to her boulders in Utah. I sat in a chair with my feet up, sangria in hand, wearing my Moab shirt and thinking about starting dinner. Cora was modeling a new shirt she is IMMENSELY proud of. We had to stop at the store to buy Easter eggs for her class egg hunt and she showed it to everyone, yelling "TITTY TAT!!" while pointing frantically at her shirt and I burst out laughing every time.

This morning she's in a bunny sweater and it's maybe even better.

One more day. We (I) can do this.