Counting my stars...

MMA class this morning was killer. For me at least, it looked like it was for the guys too. Dripping with sweat, so beat you can't talk for about five minutes afterwards, lots of aches tonight.

I fucking love this stuff. I may be the oldest, the slowest, the weakest, and least experienced but I want to do this forever. If I could find a way to do this seven days a week I would do it. Hell, if there was a class tonight I would go.

Everything that kills me makes me feel alive.

I feel younger and stronger and more powerful now than I ever have in my life. I feel about twenty-seven years old. I get really shocked when I look into the mirror and there is not a young woman standing there.

I get anxious thinking about how little time I really have to do this. 

Indispensable Me?

"Write about the last time you felt indispensable." -- The Pocket Muse, Monica Wood.

Eh. Hmmm. Indispensable?

I'm going to have to start with a definition of the word. Because if I'm not absolutely, positively sure what it means, I can't tell you for certain when I have felt such a word that describes a noun or pronoun.

From Merriam-Webster: Indispensable - adjective -  in·dis·pens·able \ˌin-di-ˈspen-sə-bəl\

1: not subject to being set aside or neglected
2: absolutely necessary : essential

Okay, that's certainly an explanation.

Image Credit to ME. I did it.
I made it with my little Paint program.

I don't know that I ever have felt indispensable, not as that definition goes. I have never been in a situation where I felt if I was an absolutely necessary participant. I have had people say, "What would I do without you?" Well, they'd find a different way to do it or they'd do without. But the other person's feelings and opinion of the situation does not make me feel indispensable.

Perhaps I am too pragmatic to feel indispensable. I'm hungry now.  I want to go eat something because I'm riding along on an errand with my husband and the destination is at least 45 minutes away (and because I'm pragmatic I see no reason to buy something to eat along the way if I have perfectly good food in my kitchen). I don't know if I've spent fifteen minutes writing this. I spent a ridiculous amount of time make the above image in Paint, so I've spent over fifteen minutes making this post suitable to...post...but that's not fifteen minutes of writing.

I'm cold. It's cold here. I need to go put on my flannel shirt. Also I have to go to the bathroom and I am seriously hungry. This is, as posts go, mediocre. But practice is practice.

Hey, it's kickboxing cycle again in my martial arts class. I must, must, must develop my blocking and ducking skills this cycle. Learning how to look for openings and setting up combos and not just throw anything out there would be good too, but blocking and ducking are the goals for this cycle. Can't really get my combos in properly if I'm getting slammed around by my opponents. Especially in my Friday applications classes, where the fine young men are far more experienced than me.

I love my new Century Tegu sparring helmet. When we were told we had to start wearing headgear for sparring (both for insurance and safety purposes) I was very annoyed, because the foam headgear we wear in my Karate class makes me very overheated very quickly and reduces my hearing. But this new helmet is sweeeeet. Much more breathable, adjustable, and I can hear much better. Expensive, but worth it. Tegu all the way, baby. It's difficult to grapple in, but we'll get used to it. Now I can wear it for Karate class too. 

My stomach is making those sounds and my husband wants to leave soon, he's warming up the truck. That's definitely my fifteen minutes. Must, must, MUST work on my story today. No excuses, bitch.