Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part III. MULTIPLYING

Chapter 22. Whatever, Honestly

I take the kids to the gym regularly. My Lyme disease doesn’t permit me to work out anymore, but I would never allow that minor detail to keep me from free child care. So I drop off the kids in the nursery and I sit in the sauna and read. It’s exactly like hot yoga, without the parts of hot yoga that I resent, like the moving part and the not allowed to read during part. When I come out, I am smarter. And warmer. And more peaceful. So now instead of meeting on the exercise bikes and sitting still and talking, Adrianne and I meet in the sauna and sit still and talk. And when we leave, we are so sweaty that we even believe we’ve worked out.

Recently, following a particularly dramatic mommy meltdown, I bought some new workout clothes for my sauna exercise regimen.

Let me explain.

Once a week I have a breakdown during which I wail to Craig that for various reasons that I am too overwhelmed and despondent and incoherent to discuss in detail, my life is completely unmanageable. We call it a Mommy Meltdown in our home. My friend Erin calls it a Caretaker Fatigue Attack. Either way, mine include lots of tears and dramatic phrases thrown around, my favorite of which is: I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. Craig once made the mistake of asking me what specifically the IT is that I am unable to TAKE, and let us just say that he will not make that mistake again.

Often, as I start to cool off from a meltdown, I decide that the only thing that will improve my life is to leave the house alone—immediately—and buy lots of crap. I do not know why this is my solution, but when I arrive at whatever crap store to which my van drives, there are always many other maniacal-looking women also wandering the aisles aimlessly. So I must not be the only one who considers crap-buying a viable solution to: I JUST CAN’TTAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

On my last crap-buying trip, I purchased some new workout (sauna) clothes. One piece was a yoga top with massive pads in the bra. Pads in the bra. The irony of practicing yoga in order to connect with the universe and one’s inner self and find acceptance and self-love in a padded bra is not lost on me. As a matter of fact, it is so me. I bought two. I wore one of my new booby tops to the gym.

After doing my time in the sauna, I wasn’t ready to leave yet, so I went out to walk on the treadmill. I smiled at the lady next to me and noticed that she was staring at me. I assumed that she was impressed by my huge boobs. I smiled humbly. The lady locked eyes with me and said, “Excuse me, your tag is still on.”

Please understand that to me, this is like someone saying, “Excuse me, do you have the time?” No biggie. I always leave my tags on. Taking them off is just one of those things with which I can’t be bothered. And since I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE quite often, I have a lot of tags.

I thanked the nice woman and continued walking. I didn’t look for the tag, didn’t even pretend to. I got 99 problems, lady, and a tag ain’t one.

A half-hour later I was back in the locker room preparing to shower. Yes, I shower at the gym too. I refuse to retrieve my children until we have reached the full two-hour nursery maximum. If I arrive three minutes early, I wait outside the door and stare into space for three minutes.

So I walked past the locker room mirror and did a double-take. Here’s the tag. Here’s the tag I was wearing, just like this, for my entire two hours at the very crowded gym.

And there you have it.