Never Been So Happy for Something So Bad... Wednesday, November 24

Last night, after my evening Samsung tutoring class, I headed over to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law’s house. I was hoping Mama Kim would ask me if I was hungry – I was absolutely starving – and she did. She ended up heating up a full grilled chicken that had sticky rice stashed away in the middle of it. My eyes widened as soon as she slapped that bad boy down before me on the table.

I ate the WHOLE thing, well, in all fairness I did mention that I was starving!

Had I been able to eat the bones I probably would have eaten them too… hahaha. It was pure delish. Lately I’ve been training like an animal so my food expenses have gotten a bit out of hand, rounding out at about $70 per week! It’d be more too if I hadn’t already stocked up on organic strawberry spread, oatmeal and frozen blueberries at Costco the other month.

After I wolfed down the whole chicken, I caught glimpse of Mama Kim looking at me in shock. “You ate the whole thing?!” she noted. Yes, yes I did. No sooner had I gobbled down the chicken but then my mother-in-law weaseled the whole give-me-a-baby talk into our conversation.

“Just one – one daughter” she repeatedly said to me.

“Just one” I said over and over again in my head. Just one, like it’s no big deal to drop everything I’ve got going on with my boxing and training – my life -- and pop out a butterball baby. The only butterball I want in my life is the one I put on my plate and gobble down.

Mama Kim likes to put it on thick when she brings up baby talk. I tried to steer away from the baby talk by telling her about my upcoming fight but that was only greeted with a dropped jaw and majorly frowned eyebrows. “I thought you quit boxing… you’re married now” she noted. Married yes but stopped boxing, certainly no. I didn’t realize that life supposedly stopped after marriage, boy did I really screw that up!

Just for the record, I’ve been offered four fights this year, four fights that I had to decline because of my honeymoon, traveling to the Philippines for Snickers’ fight, and then two because of my trip to Canada.

“Married women should have babies… married women don’t box.”

What?! Did she just say that to me, was she serious? Yes, she was, that’s the problem and the more and more I thought about that one comment the more and more I could see why K-Gere divorced her. I know that’s super harsh of me to say but that’s the initial thought that popped into my mind. K-Gere has never ever told me to have a baby and he’s been nothing but overly supportive of my boxing. I’m not even married to Mama Kim but I too want to divorce her. I know she means well, on her own terms and in her own totally old skool Korean way of thinking, but she makes me want to scream sometimes.

Ever since Snickers left for Japan I have really tried to see my mother-in-law in a different light. I make a plan of visiting her at least once a week. It's a twenty minute ride to her house across town that means I have to bare the brutal massive roads I spend all week trying to avoid. I then usually stay a couple of hours and then of course I have to make my way back home. I really do want to love her and I really do want to have a good relationship with her but it seems like the harder I try, the harder she comes at me, and what can I do but take it.

Anyways, I tried to keep this disappointing conversation from Snickers but when he called later on and noted that he had heard from Mama Kim that I had visited, without thinking I blurted out “Now I know why K-Gere is moving to Busan!” Not exactly a nice thing to say, I know, but I am so done with old skool ideas.

This all went down yesterday but today I woke up all ticked off about it. I didn't sleep well because of it and I wanted nothing but to be put in the ring with this old skool mentality and beat it to a pulp.

I am of the generation that allows its’ women freedom. The generation that doesn’t believe women are meant to be barefoot and pregnant and at their husband’s beckoning call. I know it’s a cultural thing but how many times are we going to have to have this conversation before she gets it through her head that I don’t want a child?! Call me crazy but I feel like I’m beating my head against a brick wall about this issue, so when Snickers said, “but I think our child would be so cute… I want to see our baby” I snapped.

“It’s called photo shop…. learn it, use it.”

It’s no secret that I physically can’t have kids and you know what, tonight as I laid down to sleep and said my bedtime prayers, I gave thanks to God for making me reproductively challenged. It all stems back to when I was 18; I almost died. While I practically laid on my death bed, the doctors tested this drug and that drug on me. My body was struggling to go through puberty but between the steroids, numerous other prescribed drugs and the extreme stress on my body, my system got all messed up. Then, when I started to go hardcore with my weight training and then later on with my boxing, my system never did get a chance to recover. Physically I look like any other woman but on the inside, well, things are pretty confused.

My doctor once prescribed birth control pills to try to get my body on track, telling me that they’d help regulate me so that later when I do want to have a child I can. Snickers keeps on buying them for me but they, along with the previous accumulated months of pills sit in the bottom of my underwear drawer and make their way down the toilet every so often.

I’ve never been so happy, felt so relieved, and felt so overly blessed to not be able to have kids as I am tonight.

Thank you God for drugs, they saved my life!!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What old skool idea would you just love to kick to the curb?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not.
-- James Gordon