Exercise

I never took exercise seriously when growing up or in high school, my focus was surviving and having fun or what I thought was having fun. That is another story fro a another time and place!
I will start this story with another story that made me feel the power of what exercise can do for not only oneself but another person in my life that helped us both become more complete to ourselves and to each other.
Allison my youngest daughter, from a second marriage, was 15 almost 16 at the time that the following event took place.
She was having a difficult time with life and with me, her brother and her and mom were now out of the house under my insistence, and overall she was a bit mad at everything. It seemed the one thing that keep us talking and spending time with one another is that I was teaching her how to drive! The white truck, the 1st almost new car the family bought while we were still all together! A stick shift chevy S-10 with the jumper seat in back! Some good memories of family go with that o truck…anyhow there was a day that we were going over to the parking lot to practice her shifting skills, and I bent down to tie my shoe…well it was a struggle. I was huffing for air and red in the face just bending over…Allison looked at me and said dad you need to lose some weight you are too fat…at that time I was in my early 50’s, 245 lbs a size 42 at 5’5”….my response was a half hearted “I wish”…no dad really come on we are going to the gym and sighing up…Allison was already doing the gym thing with friends and I said “ok but you have to come with me!” Off we went to the closest gym which was fitness 19 and that began a almost two year journey with my daughter that brought us together in so many ways…we would go 5 times a week and many times twice in one day! We ended up have passes for la fitness, planet fitness, golds…more often than not a few at the same time…we got personal trainers, we used the pool and spas, we grew closer than ever we began to see each other as people with views of there own and the ability to try and understand one another…we where able to talk about her mom and her brother who had taken a dark path…about her sisters who were out in the world doing there own thing…about what she wanted to do with her life…and that lead her to look into joining the military with my persistent urging…she went into the navy at 17…I In turn learn how to communicate with my daughter and the other kids as well…I gained confidence in what I did for my body and health I made it to being 175 lbs a size 34 and could press 225 lbs…but most of all I saw things from a different perspective in so many ways…it was a turning point for both of us and we both cherish that time we spend together….