Friday, September 13, 2013

My Foot is Too Big for the Glass Slipper by Gabrielle Reece with Karen Karbo



My Foot is Too big for the Glass Slipper: A guide to the less than perfect life
By Gabrielle Reece with Karen Karbo
When I picked up this book, the title caught me.  I started reading and it all sounded a little too wonderful.  I started to think maybe it was going to be like a reality TV show. Then I was struck by her sense of humor.

“We didn’t even make it to the fifth anniversary before our sexy fairy tale turned into one of those unwatchable Swedish domestic dramas that makes the audience want to throw themselves off the nearest bridge.”
For those who don’t know, Gabrielle Reece is a six-foot-three professional athlete and looking at pictures, you might think she is perfect but she candidly lets you know that she is a real person.

“My arms and legs are so long, sometimes it feels as if I have twice as many moving parts as the average woman... In a few minutes I’ll stand up from the chair I’m sitting in as I write this, and there’s no guarantee I won’t trip over my feet between the desk and the door.  It makes me anxious.”
The more I read, the more down-to-Earth it became with great advice for life.  There were many things I’ve learned too that we all need to be reminded of from time to time. 

“I took every slammed cupboard personally… His mood, the one that would make me feel unloved, would be long gone, but I’d still be feeling the sting of it, the injustice.  I’d still be experiencing his mood, long after he was out of it.”
I think that’s pretty normal for a lot of women, and maybe some men too.  She goes on to say that she would never say anything, that she would tread lightly instead of venting herself and getting it out and over.  Of course, after four years, she couldn’t take it anymore.  She filed for divorce.  He tried to talk her out of it but she was done.  Six months later he showed up to pick up his snowboard and she realized she’d made a mistake.

“Laird and I got back together.  For another year or two, we circled each other, unsure.  We were like survivors of some natural disaster, grateful to be alive, but dazed by the wreckage.  The foundation was cracked, the roof had leaks, the windows were smashed out.  Repairs always take longer – and cost more – than you might first imagine.”
They had a couple kids and hit another rough patch but made it through.  She quotes Anne Morrow Lindbergh - “When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.”

I remember reading an article some time back about how men tend to pull back then lean in cyclically in a relationship.  Paradoxically, women then want to lean in when men are pulling back.  It’s hard to just relax. 
“Nothing makes you superficially more happy than the first flushes of love, but in the ever after it’s all about dealing with your lover, with understanding what makes him tick, surviving his crappy moods, and working together, always, to preserve what you’ve got and nurture a deeper, more profound and grounded love into the future.  Happily schmappily.  I don’t think so.”

This book is like a very chatty and level-headed series of blog posts or essays, covering many of the topics that are important to women today as wives, mothers and human beings.  She covers pregnancy, having a baby and motherhood.  She’s an athlete so she devotes some time to talking about working out, the many benefits of exercise and starting/maintaining a fitness regimen.  She talks about the sisterhood of women and creating a supportive group, preferably inter-generational.
God bless her, I think she hits the nail on the head with food and dieting. 

“Don’t do it.  I don’t care if you’re eighty-seven pounds overweight.” 
I can now fully endorse this book.  She adheres to the principle of eating healthy but having the fun food on occasion too.

“When you put something in your mouth, always know why you’re doing it…  if you’re going to eat that triple fudge salty caramel brownie, really eat it.  Stop texting, give it your full attention, lick your fingers, sigh, and moan.  Enjoy the hell out of it.” 
I agree. 

There’s some things I’m not going to touch on here, because it’s just between us girls.  This is some thoroughly modern reading on what it takes to make a marriage work, parent and live a balanced life in this day and age.  I appreciated it.  I hope you will too.
Check out Gabrielle Reece’s blog at http://www.gabriellereece.com