Friend #43 – Rayn

Rayn warned me she would be coming from a fitness class so she would be hot and sweaty.  Wanting to make sure she was comfortable, I got up early and went to the gym before I headed over to meet her for coffee so I could be hot and sweaty too.  Her Facebook page told the story of someone with fitness as a core part of their life and when she arrived, she told me she had considered an attempt to look her best, only to realize the sweaty girl with no makeup was more like her than anything else. 

I admired that about her.  I like people with transparency. 

And so to be perfectly transparent on my part, I admitted that I would only rate my fitness level at moderate at best.  The little pillow of fat around my midsection was proof of it.  Rayn shrugged, as if it didn’t bother her.  “I don’t exercise to get smaller,” she said.  “I exercise to be more powerful.”  And by the way she moved her arms, I could virtually see the warrior inside of her step out in front of me and then fall back. 

Rayn was trained as a professional dancer.  She fell in love with modern dance at ASU and for a while, she even had her own dance company in the southwest.  Then, nine years into her marriage, she unexpectedly got pregnant.  Children had never been a part of the plan for her or her husband, but something about the timing felt right.  They had both individually been feeling it.  It could have been a deal breaker for her marriage but instead it brought them closer together.  And for Rayn, that was very fortunate because it was emotionally difficult for her, a person who had always been so expressive with her body, to have that body and her hormones change in unexpected ways.

She was lying in bed after her first pregnancy when she told her husband, “If we want another child, we need to have them right away…because otherwise, I don’t think I can do this again.”  Rayne had a second little girl soon afterwards but the hardship of both pregnancies left her derailed mentally. 

Rayn admits there is probably something chemically wrong with her brain.  She can feel the depression coming on like the flu.  Sometimes she denies the symptoms but more recently, she recognizes them and tries to hold them at bay.  Depression still has a way of poking its pesky way through.  Sometimes she has had to resort to medication to ride out the wave…and she feels no shame in admitting that.  For her, a balanced diet and exercise help her keep her emotions in check. 

Rayn teaches fitness classes in the Chandler area and when she is in front of her class, she is at her best and most positive.  She said some of the women in her classes would probably be shocked to know that there are times after class when she cries and has a difficult time at home.  It doesn’t hold her back.  It’s just something she knows she has to manage.  And aren’t we all managing something? 

Every day is a balancing act to manage children, relationships and ambition.  Give too much to one area and another area suffers.  Right now, Rayn is traveling around from studio to studio to teach her classes, toting all of her gear around in her van.  She would like nothing more than to have her own studio.  Some of the women in her classes have pointed out there is a fancy new shopping plaza not far away that would be perfect for a fitness studio.  But Rayn likes the women she meets working out of the rec center.  She feels like it is where she makes the most difference. 

Once, before Rayn met her husband, she was engaged to another man who one day, out of the blue, dumped her and quickly removed everything from the apartment they shared together.  Rayn remembers sitting cross-legged on her bare mattress, because he had taken the sheets, with tears rolling down her face.  There were no dishes in the cabinets.  Her family was far away.  She felt like it was rock bottom, like she had nothing.  It was a pivotal moment.  Yet the women in her dance troop scooped her up, and piece by piece, put her back together. 

Now at 45, Rayn’s body doesn’t do all the things it used to be able to do but her greatest performance is the one she never realized she was giving.  There have been moments in her life that have been ugly, hurtful and filled with tears…but there have also been moments when her heart has been filled with love for her husband and her children.  There have been moments of depression and moments when she’s walked away from a class, feeling as if her instruction has helped someone else.  It is the dance we all perform called life.  It’s the dance that is the most important, the yin and the yang, but it is the balance that makes it most beautiful.