Rule of Life #4

So, are you doing Zumba? I had never heard of this until a couple months ago, and then suddenly everyone was all, zumba this and zumba that, kind of like when everyone, all at once, started spinning.  (With spinning, I sort of thought everyone got crafty all the sudden, and started spinning their own yarn or something.  It took me a while to catch on that it was an exercise.) Anyway, I decided to try a Zumba class this morning, to see what the fuss is all about.  Apparently, first of all, it is really "zoom-ba," not "zuhm-ba."  In case you were pronouncing it like I was.  And it is sort of like jazzercize and salsa dancing at the same time, and let me tell you, the rhythm is not inside me.

But luckily, the rhythm seemed to be only inside the instructor, and so everyone in the room was sort of jumping around, shaking their hips and doing jazz hands, eyes locked on the instructor so as to try to get his/her own hip shaking to be vaguely in the same rhythm as the instructor's -- no one watched each other much.  I don't think I got many of the moves right, but I definitely jumped around enough to work off some of that artichoke dip from last night's Christmas party.

I did, briefly, catch my own eye in the mirror once.  And while I had to quickly look back at the instructor to figure out what was happening next, I also spent a split second thinking about a list that I recently read online -- "Forty-Two Things That Change When You Have A Baby," I think it was called.  Many of them, though true, were sort of boring and cliche, but one did catch my eye: "now you look at your baby in the mirror instead of yourself."

That one thing on the list had sort of struck me with its truth, in that way where something is obviously true, but you've never really thought about it before, or at least you've never thought of it in those terms before. Other than vague attempts to check that there's no food in my teeth, or that my jacket isn't on inside out, I rarely look at just myself in the mirror lately, though I probably coo and tap and point and wave at the mirror at least seventeen times a day, with Shay by my side or on my hip.

And then, suddenly, there I was in the mirror: just me, separate from the baby.  And I was shaking my hips and doing jazz hands, to no discernible rhythm.

My AP English teacher from high school once told us that an important key to happiness is learning to embrace "Rule of Life #4," which he told us was "Don't take yourself so seriously!"  We asked him over and over again what the other rules of life were, but he wouldn't tell us -- "you've got to figure them out for yourselves," he would insist. I think about that sometimes, but my list is still a work-in-progress.  "If you cook you don't have to do the dishes" is definitely on there; I think it's #7.

And I think that Rule of Life #4 is a continual work-in-progress, but for that final split second I spent being aware of myself in the mirror, shaking my hips and doing my jazz hands, totally off-rhythm and sweaty, I noticed that I was smiling.  So, I'd add a forty-third thing that has changed in my life: I'm learning to embrace Rule of Life #4.

What about you, what do you think the "Rules of Life" are?  How are you doing on #4?  And also, have you tried Zumba? If so, can you tell me how long I'll be sore for? Because my legs are kinda ouchy.