Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Breaking Foundations
This week I've had a serious rebound. Despite all the flu talk, I was thinking to myself last night how great it was to feel genuinely well and strong again. My usual aches and stiffness from working out are back, but I can't say I mind. To me it's a sign that things are changing.
Today though, I felt splintered. I didn't eat enough, certainly not enough protein. I got up too late, was too rushed running an errand first thing, and it broke my stride for the rest of the day.
The Marine has been working on our basement for a month and a half. He is exhausted and we really haven't been able to do much together with weekends being spent in and on the house. It will all be worth it in the end, but I miss what used to be our normal life.
But in some ways I don't. That old, soggy basement was much like the other parts of my past that I want no part of, a past where I was too tired and too sad most days. Now I am much more in the moment, instead of feeling like the only house in the neighbourhood that still has Christmas lights up in July. Part of me is terrified at the prospect of change, real change. I think that's the discomfort I'm feeling today, why I feel frantic and leaden at the same time.
But my discomfort is outweighed by my curiosity. I don't know where I'll be this time next year. Despite that, the thought of it makes me smile.
Today though, I felt splintered. I didn't eat enough, certainly not enough protein. I got up too late, was too rushed running an errand first thing, and it broke my stride for the rest of the day.
The Marine has been working on our basement for a month and a half. He is exhausted and we really haven't been able to do much together with weekends being spent in and on the house. It will all be worth it in the end, but I miss what used to be our normal life.
But in some ways I don't. That old, soggy basement was much like the other parts of my past that I want no part of, a past where I was too tired and too sad most days. Now I am much more in the moment, instead of feeling like the only house in the neighbourhood that still has Christmas lights up in July. Part of me is terrified at the prospect of change, real change. I think that's the discomfort I'm feeling today, why I feel frantic and leaden at the same time.
But my discomfort is outweighed by my curiosity. I don't know where I'll be this time next year. Despite that, the thought of it makes me smile.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Inneresting....
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Working It Out
Given my illness last week, getting back into the swing of work outs this week has been tough. I'm struggling. I admit it.
If there was one consolation to being sick it was this: last week was the first time in ages I woke up and wasn't sore anywhere. Every workout gives me progress and strength, but it also reasserts the fact that I am still galactically out of shape. I just keep my focus on the longer term. It's taken a decade of depression and inactivity to get to where I am now. I'm not going to remedy that fact in two weeks.
Still, my ego's a little bruised when I'm doing arm pulls and 10 pounds is killing me. KILLING. ME.
I have to admit I've been a bit whiny this week too. Monday I was just so tired. I didn't look much better today. And even though he doesn't let me off the hook, I've never had a good poker face. I think my trainer realized today that I'm having a bad week. I committed to myself that I wouldn't whinge, but even I balked when he gave me the ten pound medicine ball to do squats with.
I basically said to get me the six pounder, cause there was no way. I'm stopping when I need to as well, but I finish all my reps.
My form was terrible with an exercise on Monday, but I said well, my form may not be good, but you will always get the best I have to give that day. My trainer seemed satisfied with that. It was also a diplomatic way for me to say "and I'm not taking any shit off you."
I'm having to actively work to not feel despondent even though my stride's been broken temporarily. Trying to get in shape when you've never really been there is tough, I won't lie. But what are my options? Getting older, fatter and weaker? I don't think so. I am making this change happen. I walked out today with the back of my arms and shoulder blades burning and pulsing.
It felt uncomfortable. It felt good too.
If there was one consolation to being sick it was this: last week was the first time in ages I woke up and wasn't sore anywhere. Every workout gives me progress and strength, but it also reasserts the fact that I am still galactically out of shape. I just keep my focus on the longer term. It's taken a decade of depression and inactivity to get to where I am now. I'm not going to remedy that fact in two weeks.
Still, my ego's a little bruised when I'm doing arm pulls and 10 pounds is killing me. KILLING. ME.
I have to admit I've been a bit whiny this week too. Monday I was just so tired. I didn't look much better today. And even though he doesn't let me off the hook, I've never had a good poker face. I think my trainer realized today that I'm having a bad week. I committed to myself that I wouldn't whinge, but even I balked when he gave me the ten pound medicine ball to do squats with.
I basically said to get me the six pounder, cause there was no way. I'm stopping when I need to as well, but I finish all my reps.
My form was terrible with an exercise on Monday, but I said well, my form may not be good, but you will always get the best I have to give that day. My trainer seemed satisfied with that. It was also a diplomatic way for me to say "and I'm not taking any shit off you."
I'm having to actively work to not feel despondent even though my stride's been broken temporarily. Trying to get in shape when you've never really been there is tough, I won't lie. But what are my options? Getting older, fatter and weaker? I don't think so. I am making this change happen. I walked out today with the back of my arms and shoulder blades burning and pulsing.
It felt uncomfortable. It felt good too.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Breakage and Repair
"Walking down the Mercer Street
Been a long hot summer
Rain like daggers
Coming down on me"
~ Road to Somewhere, Goldfrapp
Last week I was the sickest I've been in years. I had hit my usual cycle of working out and getting sick. This time was different though. This time, the doctor I saw wrote me off work for the week. I had a virus, not an infection, and there was nothing for it but to keep drinking lots of fluids and getting plenty of rest.
Rest.
What a foreign term that has seemed for so long. I seem to always be occupied or pre-occupied with something, anxiety right behind me like the exhaust from a tail pipe. It seems impossible for me to slow myself down inside even when there is nothing to do. And yet this week I did nothing but rest and my body took things from there. Six boxes of tissues later, my head and chest are clear of what was, suffice it to say, a very nasty infection indeed.
I got my first bad sinus infection in 1994, the last time I was in Scotland. I was laid up for two weeks and it's as sick as I ever want to be in my life. Physically, I've never been quite the same since that infection and it has reasserted itself every time I have tried to push myself, be it working out, extra curricular activity or a busy workload. Eventually I got things to a point where working out always seemed to be the trigger, but the only one.
Part of me thought that I'd dodged it. I've been doing very well this time around but by Wednesday it was clear that I wasn't going back to work anytime soon. I needed to stop, in every way, and just not think or do anything. I was at the point of sickness, where you quite simply don't care how busy things are at the office or what chores need to be done. All that matters is sleep.
This past summer has taken a toll on many fronts. I needed to acknowledge that for what it was and as a result, I think I've finally defeated whatever it was that got its claws into me 15 years ago. I have hacked and coughed, sniffled and sneezed, cried and shook, without apology. My heart is broken and I can't put it back together unless I acknowledge its in pieces in the first place.
The mornings are quiet now without Shuggy's ritual "mep!" and I cry. Without reading through them, I grabbed a bunch of cards that were on our living room unit because I didn't want to encounter my grandmother's last birthday card to me. As it was, it was a placekeeper in a book that I picked up again yesterday morning and I cried reading its words. It's funny how at some point you expect your parents to start treating you like an adult, but your grandparents can fearlessly and forever buy you cards suitable for a 12 year old and not offend you in the slightest. Never again, will I be a little girl to anyone, the way I was to my grandparents.
I have thought of the Maritimer, re-read his letters and have cried. I've mulled over what I know about his life out east, finally processing all the feelings I cut off and shoved back down inside myself 11 years ago. That pattern of behavior has done as much as anything to make me ill. For a while, it was all I could do not besiege the people I found with relentless emails. People are where they are with this situation, and that's not my neck of the woods for damn sure. I wanted to hop on a plane, find them and shake every last detail about the Maritimer out of them. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you saw. Everything, no matter how trivial, tell me all of it. Show me absolution for my self-imposed blame.
For that's what a lot of this grief has been about: the coulda, woulda, shouldas, the siren call of my own perfectionism inviting me to once again, crash myself upon its rocks.
And then yesterday, some grace.
The book I picked up, the one with my grandmother's birthday card in it is by Elizabeth Lesser. It's called Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. Ironically, I bought this book on a whim late spring before any of the events of late had happened. I had seen the author on Oprah and she struck me as a pragmatic sort, about as flaky as toffee. I could not have a better book to be reading right now. There is an incredible chapter about September 11th. I won't spoil it for you here, but this is the part that hit me full on:
"Driving home in the warm September night, I found my thoughts returning to the people on the airplanes, and to that moment when they realized they were speeding through space toward their death. I let my grip on life loosen, until I was with those people, sharing the awe, finally understanding the secret - the same secret we will all know when death is just a breath away: In the end, what will matter is how much we loved - our children, our mates, our families, our friends, everyone we knew, everyone who traveled with us during our brief visit to this unbearably lovely place. What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do."
In its extract, the above may strike you as maudlin. Don't make that mistake. I highly encourage you to get the book and absorb this in the context of the whole chapter.
What I realized after reading the above, is that as much as I can beat myself up regarding my time with the Maritimer and wish I had done some things differently, I also loved him with everything I had and as best I could during our time together. He did likewise. Nothing that has happened changes that. I had forgotten this central fact, omitted it entirely from my remembrance of him, and us.
It was a good reminder to recommit myself to the present, to be thankful and to value what I have now. For though I may feel much has been taken away, I also feel much is to be given in the time ahead of me. Though paths may now be closed to me, new ones are opening up.
This is the price I pay for making the journey to reclaim those parts of my soul I feel are still lost to me. I must show up and be willing to be see things through, to be uncomfortable. I think that's what a lot of the past week has been about. As much as I needed to heal physically, my heart needed to heal too.
Been a long hot summer
Rain like daggers
Coming down on me"
~ Road to Somewhere, Goldfrapp
Last week I was the sickest I've been in years. I had hit my usual cycle of working out and getting sick. This time was different though. This time, the doctor I saw wrote me off work for the week. I had a virus, not an infection, and there was nothing for it but to keep drinking lots of fluids and getting plenty of rest.
Rest.
What a foreign term that has seemed for so long. I seem to always be occupied or pre-occupied with something, anxiety right behind me like the exhaust from a tail pipe. It seems impossible for me to slow myself down inside even when there is nothing to do. And yet this week I did nothing but rest and my body took things from there. Six boxes of tissues later, my head and chest are clear of what was, suffice it to say, a very nasty infection indeed.
I got my first bad sinus infection in 1994, the last time I was in Scotland. I was laid up for two weeks and it's as sick as I ever want to be in my life. Physically, I've never been quite the same since that infection and it has reasserted itself every time I have tried to push myself, be it working out, extra curricular activity or a busy workload. Eventually I got things to a point where working out always seemed to be the trigger, but the only one.
Part of me thought that I'd dodged it. I've been doing very well this time around but by Wednesday it was clear that I wasn't going back to work anytime soon. I needed to stop, in every way, and just not think or do anything. I was at the point of sickness, where you quite simply don't care how busy things are at the office or what chores need to be done. All that matters is sleep.
This past summer has taken a toll on many fronts. I needed to acknowledge that for what it was and as a result, I think I've finally defeated whatever it was that got its claws into me 15 years ago. I have hacked and coughed, sniffled and sneezed, cried and shook, without apology. My heart is broken and I can't put it back together unless I acknowledge its in pieces in the first place.
The mornings are quiet now without Shuggy's ritual "mep!" and I cry. Without reading through them, I grabbed a bunch of cards that were on our living room unit because I didn't want to encounter my grandmother's last birthday card to me. As it was, it was a placekeeper in a book that I picked up again yesterday morning and I cried reading its words. It's funny how at some point you expect your parents to start treating you like an adult, but your grandparents can fearlessly and forever buy you cards suitable for a 12 year old and not offend you in the slightest. Never again, will I be a little girl to anyone, the way I was to my grandparents.
I have thought of the Maritimer, re-read his letters and have cried. I've mulled over what I know about his life out east, finally processing all the feelings I cut off and shoved back down inside myself 11 years ago. That pattern of behavior has done as much as anything to make me ill. For a while, it was all I could do not besiege the people I found with relentless emails. People are where they are with this situation, and that's not my neck of the woods for damn sure. I wanted to hop on a plane, find them and shake every last detail about the Maritimer out of them. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you saw. Everything, no matter how trivial, tell me all of it. Show me absolution for my self-imposed blame.
For that's what a lot of this grief has been about: the coulda, woulda, shouldas, the siren call of my own perfectionism inviting me to once again, crash myself upon its rocks.
And then yesterday, some grace.
The book I picked up, the one with my grandmother's birthday card in it is by Elizabeth Lesser. It's called Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. Ironically, I bought this book on a whim late spring before any of the events of late had happened. I had seen the author on Oprah and she struck me as a pragmatic sort, about as flaky as toffee. I could not have a better book to be reading right now. There is an incredible chapter about September 11th. I won't spoil it for you here, but this is the part that hit me full on:
"Driving home in the warm September night, I found my thoughts returning to the people on the airplanes, and to that moment when they realized they were speeding through space toward their death. I let my grip on life loosen, until I was with those people, sharing the awe, finally understanding the secret - the same secret we will all know when death is just a breath away: In the end, what will matter is how much we loved - our children, our mates, our families, our friends, everyone we knew, everyone who traveled with us during our brief visit to this unbearably lovely place. What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do."
In its extract, the above may strike you as maudlin. Don't make that mistake. I highly encourage you to get the book and absorb this in the context of the whole chapter.
What I realized after reading the above, is that as much as I can beat myself up regarding my time with the Maritimer and wish I had done some things differently, I also loved him with everything I had and as best I could during our time together. He did likewise. Nothing that has happened changes that. I had forgotten this central fact, omitted it entirely from my remembrance of him, and us.
It was a good reminder to recommit myself to the present, to be thankful and to value what I have now. For though I may feel much has been taken away, I also feel much is to be given in the time ahead of me. Though paths may now be closed to me, new ones are opening up.
This is the price I pay for making the journey to reclaim those parts of my soul I feel are still lost to me. I must show up and be willing to be see things through, to be uncomfortable. I think that's what a lot of the past week has been about. As much as I needed to heal physically, my heart needed to heal too.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Ashes to Ashes
I need some feedback Romanship.
Events of late have compelled me to think about my death and what I would like at the end. I have always wanted to be cremated and I had this notion that my ashes would be scattered with those of my cats and of the Marine.
I'm now realizing that this is somewhat ridiculous. With little Shuggy gone, I now have four sets of cat ashes. Assuming I live to a ripe old age, that number could get ridiculous and I'm now thinking that's an awful task to leave behind for someone else to take care of.
So, I've decided two things: one, I want my ashes to be scattered with the Marine's. Wherever he is, I want to be. So either I'll go first and he'll let somebody know what to do with the both of us, or vice versa.
I'd like to honour the memory of my beloved cats now, and I'm just not sure what to do. I could scatter their ashes in our backyard, but then if we ever moved, I'd feel like I was leaving them behind, even though logically that is completely ridiculous.
Anyway, any insight or suggestions appreciated.
Events of late have compelled me to think about my death and what I would like at the end. I have always wanted to be cremated and I had this notion that my ashes would be scattered with those of my cats and of the Marine.
I'm now realizing that this is somewhat ridiculous. With little Shuggy gone, I now have four sets of cat ashes. Assuming I live to a ripe old age, that number could get ridiculous and I'm now thinking that's an awful task to leave behind for someone else to take care of.
So, I've decided two things: one, I want my ashes to be scattered with the Marine's. Wherever he is, I want to be. So either I'll go first and he'll let somebody know what to do with the both of us, or vice versa.
I'd like to honour the memory of my beloved cats now, and I'm just not sure what to do. I could scatter their ashes in our backyard, but then if we ever moved, I'd feel like I was leaving them behind, even though logically that is completely ridiculous.
Anyway, any insight or suggestions appreciated.
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