“Mrs. Davis, your calves are HUGE!”
Ahhh…. sweet Joshy Josh. I’ve known him since he was wee. Okay, 2005, when we moved to our neighborhood. But he’s still wee. Hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet. All you have to do is look at my Drewbear to see what kind of height-havoc growth spurts wreak on little boys.
None of that is the point.
The point is that I do have huge calves. For a girl. For a 4’6″ girl. Easily the size of softballs. And softballs are partly to blame.
Three seasons. I played catcher. A damn good one, too. Pretty much doing squats for 9 innings tends to make your calves explode. I’m sure it was just the catcher part that did it, considering I probably hit a ball with a baseball bat (as opposed to my head) maybe 3 times in 3 years. I certainly wasn’t running bases.
Tae Kwon Do. Three or four years. I competed. I was chosen to be on my school’s demo team, so I was training 5-6 days a week. Part of which included up-n-down laps on concrete stadium stairs. I was damn good at that, too. Apparently, I’m pretty damn good at everything, right? But the 5-6 days a week thing kinda burned me out. I’m really damn good at burning out.
Three years of marching band. From 8th grade to 10th. Marching Band. Need I say more?
And running. I started running off and on probably somewhere around ’08. At that point, I was just running from mailbox to mailbox- sort of my own version of Couch to 5K, since I didn’t know it existed. I really started running in earnest around 2010. Meaning, most days of the week, for a significant amount of time and distance.
Yes. My calves are huge. For my size. They are. I don’t have cankles. Thank god. Eeewww! No. It is very obviously muscle. And when I flex, they look totally. fucking. BADASS. Yes. They do.
I have come to embrace them. Although it took a while. For a long time, I thought I should be petite everywhere. But I was not. I am built. I’ve been active for most of my life. My bones are strong. I have meat on them. I have muscle. I have fat.
Especially since I quit smoking. I kinda got a little bit juicy. No longer. That is getting fixed as we speak.
Oh yeah. My calves are huge. And yes, I have learned to be proud of them. I love them. They carry me and move me. They give me strength. They tell stories. They are a picture in the middle of the book of me.
And they draw attention away from my fat ass.
So, thank you, Josh. You are ever the sweetheart. But here is a tip from your other mother across the street- Never ever use the words “you” and “huge” in the same sentence when commenting on a girl’s body to her face. Not even her boobs. Yer just lookin’ for trouble 😉