Zumba diaries

I love to work out. Yes, I know I used LOVE and WORK OUT in the same sentence. Some times I don't feel like it but I have never regretted getting off my butt and doing it.

Last week I had a rough day. It was one of those days where everything just went wrong. It wasn't about what went wrong per se but that so much went wrong at the same time on the same day. By the time 5pm came I had to decide if I was going to change and go to my usual Zumba class. If you are not familiar with Zumba I will explain it quickly. It is a high energy, fast moving, dance class where you move to all sorts of Latin rhythms or what I call happy music.

It's hard to muster up the energy to take that class when you feel nothing that resembles happy and even less when you are down right miserable.

Let me rewind a bit. Last month while at my Zumba class and while on a typical, happy day for me, I had a conversation with a friend from class. She was so excited. Her son (my age) had come to visit her. She gushed as to how happy it made her to spend such quality time with him and how proud she was of him and his new business. How he was dating this new fantastic girl and they would probably be married soon.  I was really enjoying the story. I was reeeeeeeeeally feeling her excitement. I am very sensitive to what others are feeling and can often feel it when they are standing close to me (I know, weird....but I digress). This was during a dance break. When she turned around to start dancing again, I was still smiling just so very happy for her. Then it hit me. I am NEVER going to have that with Kai. Don't know yet if I will with Quinn either. At best, Kai will be 40 and maybe begin to be phasing off his Mickey Mouse stage and moving on to Star Wars or other more appropriate "boy" categories I am not yet familiar with. He will probably be living with me. Will probably never get married. I will probably never have grandchildren.

It's not that I have not thought of this before but it's that it just all hit me at that moment. Everything that autism has and will steal from me was playing in my head like a bad movie. Music started playing and I had to fight back the tears. To make matters worse, this was the song playing:



It is a BACHATA version of "Stand by me". I actually don't really enjoy bachata. It's my least favorite style from my classes but it was the song that affected me. I followed my adorable peppy instructor but I had tears down my face. Lame but I could not help what I was feeling. Of course I will stand by my sons but it did not make it any easier to digest. Luckily the song stopped playing and we moved on to another song and thankfully a much much higher energy one. Phew! Thank God for Pitbull and my ability to recover from being sad so quickly. Phew.



That class behind me, here I was last week considering if to attend class on a day when I was feeling rock bottom. I changed, put on my sneakers and arrived at class. I had no energy, no smile and was already thinking this had been a bad bad mistake. Everyone was in such a good mood that day. Gym friends all said cheery hellos and class started. Somewhere between my half ass merengue and weak reggaeton routine I noticed a girl in the back of the class. She was wearing a scarf over her head. Wait, I knew her. This is a girl that is always in class but now she has no hair and instead of being in the front of the class, she was hiding out in the back of the class. OMG! What happened? Cancer? Something like it? I thought. My heart sank and in that instant everything was put into perspective. Yes, things were really bad that day for me. Yes, there are days when my life just sucks and the future seems bleak but at least I have "life". This girl was probably fighting something completely different than I was but she was also going through her own pain and yet, here she was. She might have been in the back but she was rocking Shakira and Willy Chirino while I was self pitying during the songs. Just like that, I got over it. She inspired me to see the big picture that day. She reminded me that not all is lost and although things still hurt, we gain more by being positive than by rotting in negativity. We all have pain and we all have hurdles. It's about acknowledging it, feeling it, then putting it to rest (until the next time) and moving on.

My husband's response to me always saying "things could be worse" is usually " yeah but they can be much better too". He's right but since we can't control some aspects of our lives we need to focus on what we can and that's our attitude. It's all how you look at it.

For now at least, I have regained perspective and I am ready to keep rocking my Zumba class with a smile on my face regardless of what is going on in my life and class that day. I leave you in the company of Cuban genius Celia Cruz and her 2nd famous words "RIE, LLORA, que a cada cual le toca su hora" (loose translation: LAUGH, CRY because each one of us has our time)



Azucar!