Forging ahead

Last March 12 I left Costa Rica and flew into JFK airport hearing some rumblings of a virus. I had no idea what was to come. No one did. On the flight I was listening to a podcast from the New York Times that was talking about the health crisis in Italy and what could be on the horizon for us as New Yorkers. I listened with concern, but didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. It was people getting sick, people get sick all of the time. I had no idea that I would be closing the studio I had opened just 10 weeks before for the next six months just two days after landing at JFK.

I began teaching SCULPT, which was born in my bathroom, in August of 2018. It started as one class a week on Friday mornings, which turned to two, which turned to six. I was collecting all of these amazing people to workout beside and realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t just leading a form of fitness, but changing the conversation around what it meant to workout. It became obvious that the community we were building was far more important than fitting into a pair of pants. It wasn’t about being skinny it was about being strong; mentally and physically strong. It was about coming together as a collective group with all of our rawness and our shit and our lives and for 65 minutes, pushing ourselves and each other to that place where the endorphins could flow and we could be happy. Happiness for me comes when I overcome a challenge and push my body to a place where all of the tension and anxiety can release and I can surrender, and so every week I make it my priority to give that opportunity to the people who take my class. I want them to recognize their own strength and power and courage by being brave enough to take a risk and move in a very challenging way. A deep way that can conjure up everything that makes moving amazing.

I created SCULPT to heal my own postpartum depression. It was my moving meditation that I did every day without fail during the hour my daughter Ruby would nap. It was the time of the day that was mine, my music, my sweat, my pumping heart, feeling my muscles getting bigger and more pronounced. I loved it. And slowly, one day at a time, I found that I was slowly crawling and clawing my way out of the darkness that was my own depression. I got to move through my own feelings and shake and dance and do 45 minutes of straight free arms if I wanted. I created choreography that made me feel bright and happy and alive. I moved so that my body felt lengthened and stretched out but also in a way that made my muscles throb with pleasure. And after my son was born in 2018 I felt this internal force that pushed me to start teaching what I was doing solo in my bathroom to other people. It was a burning that was inside of me and had to get out. I had no choice but to try. To get in front of a room of people and say ok, I have created this thing that has changed my life, let me teach it to you and see if it changes yours. It was scary because I thought what if people don’t connect to it or like it??! What if they hate the music and the heat, what if they think I’m not smart enough or knowledgeable enough to show them this. I had some thoughts that did terrify me a little bit, but still that burning inside me overpowered those thoughts. I believed in myself and my ability enough to not listen to those voices of doubt. But I had them nonetheless and I hope whoever is reading this can know that it’s normal for doubt to creep in. It’s what makes you human, but we all have so many incredible gifts to share with the world and it’s up to us to move through that doubt. So if there is something you want to do or share please do it. Please, because if you don’t then we are the ones who miss out.

As SCULPT grew, I soon realized that I needed a home that was ours. Something permanent that was just for us and our classes and our community. It was too sacred to bounce around from space to space and constantly be at the mercy of other studios with visions that didn’t align with my own. I wanted to create a space that was simple and bright and friendly, a place for us to congregate in laughter. I wanted a place that felt safe, where people could come exactly as they are and be supported and encouraged and challenged. I never make a class easy for many reasons. I have the same philosophy of teaching SCULPT that I had when I taught Algebra to struggling learners. I will explain it in simplest terms, I will offer modifications and helpful hints, but I will always expect your best. I will always set the bar and ask you to rise to it. And in late November of 2019 I found this little empty storefront with a small handwritten FOR RENT sign on the door. And in a matter of weeks it went from being an old dress shop to my sanctuary SCULPT studio. I put in every penny of my savings to make it a functioning REAL studio. I couldn’t believe my dream was coming true before my eyes. I knew nothing about running a studio or a business for that matter. I actually Googled how to form an LLC. I relied on smart and helpful friends to start my website and scheduling platform. I bought a camera on Amazon that I could afford with the most positive reviews and started recording workouts for fun. Every step I took to build the business was done by trusting my gut, shooting from the hip and knowing that my heart was in the right place. I was also led by the deep desire to change peoples lives the way I changed my own. And that will forever and always be the mission statement of my method.

And just as my doors opened and the people came, the doors closed, and the only person in that bright sanctuary was me. Me in front of a laptop and a microphone and a screen of my humans on the other end of ZOOM. For six months without a single day off I went to that studio and logged on. Some days there would be 5 people and other days 50. Some days I would log on depressed and anxious hidden by my smile. How was I going to pay the rent? How was I going to keep my people engaged? Is ZOOM enough? What the fuck is actually happening? Is this real life? FUUUUUUCK THE MAN WHO ATE A BAT! Oh the emotions were big. But every single day I decided not to be the victim but rather the pillar of light that people could keep in front of them when they were feeling as discouraged as me. I don’t really know why I decided that, looking back I think it was subconscious. But it was a decision nonetheless. And I realized that by giving myself that responsibility I actually saved myself from a deep, dark depression. I showed up for something bigger than me and it was exactly what I needed. I know I say thank you a lot to all of you (you know who you are) but seriously, thank you. Because every morning for the 189 days that I was forced to be closed, I would turn the key to the studio and turn on the lights and I would say a little prayer that I could still turn on the lights. Without you there on zoom, we never would have made it. Without your phone calls and letters of encouragement I don’t know how I would have gotten through that time. Because on top of COVID, I was facing a reality that I had secretly known for a long time but never had the courage to actually say out loud. I was not in love with my husband. And he was not in love with me. I was in a marriage that was not working. 

I never thought I would grow up to be married at 33 and divorced before I turned 40. But there I was. I also didn’t consider dating women, forget considering falling in love with a woman! But then I met her, and my whole entire being was overcome with something I had never experienced before. I didn’t have a choice, the moment I came into contact with Danielle my breath escaped my body. I fell in love with her because she is who she is, not because she is a woman. I am an open person, I just didn’t realize how open, and meeting Danielle has shown me that. I was open to true love and true love found me. It was April when we began texting and starting a new friendship, May when we started taking each other's classes on ZOOM and June when we finally met in person at the Black Lives Matter protest. She was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and overalls and her face was covered in a black cotton mask. I noticed her small hands and how she fumbled them around her pockets. I can only describe the feeling as the universe totally standing still and in a matter of a fraction of a single second thinking I must be with her. And then realizing that I was married, and owned a home and had my small children. And for that fraction of a second it seemed so unfair. We said hello and then walked away back into the sea of posters and chanters and kids singing into megaphones. But I hung onto that fraction of a single second. Her hands, her hair, the way she looked at me. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was impossible. I drove home alone thinking I think I love her. It was a wonderful but equally painful realization since the mountain I would have to climb to get to her seemed impossibly steep and scary. Some days after that protest I would wish I never met her because my internal chaos of what to do felt worse and scarier than my bad marriage. I would teeter between excitement and despair, lust and pain. The knowing that pulled in my soul was so strong. I had to be with her. I would sit for hours and imagine not living the rest of my life with her and it would reduce me to tears. And then I would have to pick myself up off the floor and create a SCULPT workout for the next day. I would have to be the cheery, smiley mom for my kids. But they knew. They are smart little people. They saw me sad for too long. I would look at them and think I don’t want this for them. I want them to have a mom and a dad who are happy and bright and full of promise. And so I took the first step. I told my husband that I was in love with Danielle. I told my parents that I was in love with Danielle, I told Danielle that I would do whatever it took to be with her. And from that day forward we all decided to be honest. I made a choice to follow exactly what my heart was telling me to do without the fear of being judged by the outside. I didn’t waiver. I just forged ahead. I told my husband that I wanted a divorce and then had to get into my car and drive to the studio and log onto ZOOM with red eyes and go. 1,2,3 play. I would sometimes cry while on my mat, but that is the beauty of this method. Emotions should and can come up and it’s ok to just feel them and let them be what they are. We aren’t robots. We are living, breathing, messy people. 

In the course of a few months, Ben and I untangled our relationship and became the best co- parents I have ever seen. We love those kids and we show them every single day how much. We still do things as a family, a family that looks a little different then what we are told to believe a family should look like. When Lukas turned 3, Danielle, and Ben and my parents and Ruby and I sat around a table and sang Happy Birthday. And Ben has allowed them to love Danielle. And I watch her love them. It’s actually amazing what can happen when everyone stops trying to make wrong things and wrong choices fit into an ever changing world and just gets super vulnerable and honest. Sometimes we can’t make something wrong be right and it doesn’t mean we must suffer forever. Was I supposed to stay in a bad marriage so that once a year we could all wake up on Christmas morning together? No. But that is sometimes how I would think. For a moment I would think only about the appearance of things rather than sitting with my honest feelings. But creating perfect appearances are ingrained in us and our culture. Go to college, get a job, get married, have children, send out the Christmas card with everyone’s hair brushed, stay married, make it work. No. I want to teach my children to live in their truth. Life is messy, and that is what makes it worth something. My hardest moments have been some of my greatest. Maybe my kids will go to college, maybe they won’t. Maybe they will fall in love with a man or a woman or maybe both. They can have children, adopt children, or not. I want them to just be in the world as happy, contributing citizens. And my parents never forced me into my choices, but our society and culture did. Get the job with health insurance, play it safe. Why? This is our one life. I want to live it. I want to model that for Lukas and Ruby. I want them to live with vigor and passion and grow up to be someone else’s pillar of strength. I want Ben to fall in love and find his happiness, which I know he will. He will always be my family and my friend. And one day I want to be able to stand at an altar in a black wedding dress and marry the truest love I’ve ever known.

And as for the studio…we are thriving! The most incredible people walk through those studio doors and then come back again and again. I work beside kind, creative, and supportive women. I get to see first hand the joy people get from coming into a safe, warm and non judgemental space to move and sweat and laugh and cry and breath. And coming out on the other side of this pandemic and going through what I went through last year I have learned that I am indestructible.