Admitting Defeat

While I was wandering aimlessly through Cub this past weekend I noticed a girl who was about 17-19 years old. She was tall, slim, and fairly pretty. But those features were not what I noticed first. The first thing that drew my attention was the single color random tattoo across one half of her face.

As the super judgemental person I am, my first thought was, "How could she have admitted defeat so early?!" I mean seriously, she couldn't have been older than 20 years old and she has marked up her face with permanent ink. She would not be taken seriously by most of Corporate America, as well as most blue collar employers. Cripes, she's probably not even taken seriously by the people in her life.

And I felt badly for her. How terrible was her life that she admitted defeat and gave up on a future at such a young age? Was she really destined to be a failure? Was her past, and her upbringing so terrible that she could not triumph in life?

Then I thought about my own life, and my own failures. I thought about how often I admit defeat and how quickly I give up. Why is it that my marriage is worth fighting for (saying "I do" is definitely NOT admitting defeat)? What is it about having an active lifestyle that I have such a hard time staying on top of? Why am I so freaking hard on myself (Mother Freaking Self-hater?)?

I don't like to admit defeat. I don't have to give up on myself, or my friends and family. I am happy to wake up each morning and try, try again. Losing sucks, so I'm not going to lose to myself!

What did you do?

Recently I went away on a romantic weekend with my husband. We badly needed some time together as he had just finished working 80+ hours a week during the Tax Season. We decided to take a short road trip to Duluth, MN. We got a couple of recommendations on places to stay and eat, and things to do.



So when I got back to work on Monday morning, my coworkers wanted to know what we "did". I couldn't tell them what we actually did because it wasn't work appropriate. So my answer was "We just hung out, and relaxed." This was not a sufficient answer and I was pressed for more details. I sort of laughed and said, "No really, we just relaxed. We took a weekend away, just the two of us. It was nice". The response was looks of irritation and disapointment. As if the report of my weekend was going to get them out of a case of the MUN-days.

But, just to prove that we actually did stuff in Duluth, I am providing a top ten list of things we did over the weekend. Had I not engaged my verbal filter, my coworkers would have learned that:

1. We had sex... Quick "let's just do it" sex and slow "let's take our time" sex.
2. We drank a lot of alcohol and ate some tasty foods.
3. We had sex.
4. We played cards (rummy, speed, crazy 8's) and a board game called "Let's F*ck".
5. We had sex.
6. We visited the zoo.
7. We got kicked out of a bar (okay, just I got kicked out, but he gathered my belongings for me)
8. We had sex.
9. We played shuffleboard!!!
10. We had sex!

Now really... would that have made those pesky coworkers happy???