More birthday

RUN? Nope
COMMUTE? Nope

I'm still a bit sore from the Sunday race, but I want to run. Maybe after work we will go to the Eberwhite Park. Goal!

I woke up this morning and one of the first things I realized was that I needed to write this post today, but I've cut back my computer use so much that I'd have to do it on my retched phone. So once I can, I'll go to the basement to finish. In rarely use that computer. Have used it at all since it relocated there in May?

I've tried to login to the computer but I don't know my password? Well that's both surprising and not surprising. Took me long enough to find the power button. Then what is that black box around the monitor? This isn't my space. Back to my retched phone and slow typing.

My space is my new art desk. Watercolor and watercolor pencils, both gifts this year from LA. I kinda stopped in March when my job changed, picked it up again in August after kids summer. Stained glass? Sometimes. I miss it. But I'm short on time.

2022 was a year that I spent trying to change. I read all the minimalism books and started a Declutter. I'm only 1200 ish items into the 2022 item goal. I look around and see things to get rid of, but again time.

I hired a coach for three months in January. Expensive but worth it. I needed to see the mess, but the mess overwhelmed me and I fell apart for a few months.

In March my job changed or rather added in a lab manager job. Was supposed to be temporary but in July I learned that the new hire wasn't going to take the role. I still have it. It's a time suck but I enjoy the tasks and organizing and cleaning. But I'm supposed to be a senior level scientist, and that's hard to do without focus. The boss is seeing the stress on me, and wants a meeting yesterday to talk about it. But when? I'm busy! Besides, sitting and talking takes time, and usually the response is a pendulum shift too far that doesn't last or change much. We've had this meeting before to minimal improvement. I hope to leave early today, after I've made the hybridoma media for chase and done the mouse work for Lwar and nothing for me. So no meeting.

I got married in March and April! I had time for that. We didn't do a honeymoon. Yet? I loved the family weekend, disliked the stress of their support-but-odd-support, and really marriage doesn't feel different yet. My ring is there and happily not a fidget thing. My husband is here and is a support not a weight. Our home is a refuge and not a chore. I'm happy with all this.

I didn't do the April marathon I wanted to do, but did I really want to? I didn't register for it. Some of the old aches and pains came back, I was running 20 milers and feeling mentally sick from it. The marathon wasn't what I wanted yet. I wanted… I dunno. The old habits?

But I was trying so hard to break habits. The coach was to help with that but since I wasn't honest about the Monster the help was only at the surface. Go low carb. Fast. Eat this and not that. But Monster.

All year stop and start with him. I finally hit a stride in September and today is 47 days!! Nice coincidence. No urge for that now, so the streak goes easily. That's a lie, the urge is there, the thought and the turn and the pull. But the resistance is easy.

I also broke up with my internet habits. Reddit, Nextdoor, news- since late May. I had no brain space for that stuff! Now I watch how to videos on painting and the occasional YouTube video. At work, it's entirely cut back to no blog or little if any off topic web time.

I'm deep into audiobooks, less in podcasts. So many self help books, habits and anxiety and keto and fasting and … more. Read and delete, but one stuck a bit. Atomic Habits. Again!

I've written more habit scripts again, started yesterday. I'm still trying to change. I don't like who I've become, and I'm stuck in how to change. So stuck, that some days (as recently as Saturday morning) I'm crying to myself. Depression? Maybe.

What don't I like? I don't like that I'm always waiting to get better. I don't like my lack of confidence, my eyeglasses, my lack of fitness, lack of time, lack of connection. Yet here I sit typing on a phone!!

What do I want? I want the feeling I had Sunday in the race. I haven't written the race report yet (no computer, no time) but see that for more development on this thought. The Old Me had - confidence, fearless, energy. Current Me feels mired in life, surviving but not thriving, waiting and just … waiting.

Waiting for life to get Normal. We go from one stress to the next , usually centered around court issues. Centered around kids travel. Centered around exams and deadlines. I realized this recently and thinking about it I realized I'm waiting on someone else's stresses. Does that mean I'm ignoring my own? Or just that my stresses are like background noise and I just don't see them. I think the latter. Denial too perhaps.

I quit Monster. I quit Azuc. I quit the internet. I quit most all Tv video time. I started a great monthly chores habit. I started painting every day that I can. I keep a clean house. I work hard. I love LA, and we're working on the paragraph above issues.

My dog sleeps at my feet. I have not mentioned her yet. She's aging so fast. Yesterday I wondered if she'd be hear in a year to sniff wet leaves again? She's different, we blame dementia. Odd behaviors and lack of her old personality.

Maybe I see her and wonder about me. The lack of her old personality and my lack of my old personality. Do we want to go back to how it used to be? Well want to or not, we can't.

I'm supposed to have my gall bladder removed. I see a TMJ doctor next week. I don't think I want or need either. I saw a rheumatologist who just confirmed my thinking that it's all in my head. The cavity tooth repair I've been avoiding all summer is scheduled.

I'm a panic attack about money. I feel like I'm losing it every where, big expenses and constant payouts. Is it real or seems that way?

My ankle is good to run, but my body not up to real endurance stuff. I barely ride bikes anymore and actually want to sell Bird and Frea. I thought about putting away my metals. I think about getting rid of most all the old items from my old life, yet I miss my old life? What a conflict. I just realized that!

I barely make it to the gym all year. Hit and miss. I miss it. I like it. It's so close! Yet… time. And do I really want it?

We had a summer with the kids and I realized that if I can't take care of me, how could I take care of kids?! Summer was both fast and long. I love them, and don't resent the time and effort (I'm blessed there, so many stepmoms seem to have a resentment) but I resent something about it. And I think again it's the realization that I can't take care of me. I see their young habits and they are in me too. Eating less that ideal foods. Monster was there all summer. Lack of confidence. Continuously second guessing. Always measuring. It was mentally hard for me. I'm also a quiet introvert, and kids pull me away from that and my habits. So it's not a resentment of them, it's a resentment of the me I see.

In the mirror I see myself aging and I'm ok with some of it. When did my hair get so dark! Is it because I'm letting it grow out, there's just more of it? Less time outside, less lightening? I see my fitness falling away and I miss it. Not only see it, but it's the lack of fitness feeling really. The mirror only confirms it. I see tired eyes, sad face, lack of hair style, and don't want to look in the mirror again.

What could change about all this? Better clothes and better hair? Actually go to the gym and not just pay the membership fee? What else?

I'm yearning to change my Moria habit, that's the Atomic Habit mentioned. Come home and don't go to Moria. Walk the dog. Wash your face upstairs and only then play the puzzle game. Sounds silly typed like that, but it worked yesterday!

Change the stress of phone calls in Moria. Change the lingering in Moria. Leave the darkness and find light. I really dislike that part of me. How much of my dislike stems from just that?

Change the response to stress. Sometimes I think the response is addictive. Just accept that things happen outside of our control and move along with it.

I spent time last few weeks in a book that asked me to define my Values. And Who do I want to become? Took some time to realize, I value honesty and being able to trust myself Coach talked about this but only now I'm figuring it out. I don't trust that I can make a plan and stick to it. Get out of Moria. Go to the gym. Don't eat jelly beans. The atomic habits book says to just start new habits and make small wins, cast votes for your future self. Work in phases, two minutes at a time if needed.

I want to become a confident and athletic person. Again? But I do I want to be the old me? I can't be the old me. I have to make a new me.

And as I sit here, the New Moon peaked. Twenty mins ago. New Moon. New Bee.

Start defining the new bee. Do I need to get rid of old items and past reminders? Do I need new habits that aren't just endurance based?

Painting and glass? Maybe sell more glass as a side hobby. I didn't mention that yet - I sold items this summer!

I'm still a runner, but I'm more than that. But less than before.

I'm able to change, see above for Monster and more. (I wish I could change my typing, always an s for an a and an i for an o and it makes for frustrating typing!)

Calm down bee, and realize life is pretty good. Maybe I'm still doing the worried well things, but just mentally.

Yeah things need to change, and i need to wrap this up. My letter needs an ending. In a year, I hope Monster is still dead. (Really that's my first wish?!). I hope Moria doors are closed. I want to find confidence and trust, and work on small habits. I want to worry less and live more. I want to get to the gym!

These are goals. Now I need the systems to get there. How will these changes happen. Not by sitting here typing. But that's my goal for now. Design my life so the systems get me to my goals. Design the environment for success, design habits that make life better, design benchmarks to see the progress.

Happy birthday Bee. There's so much more to think, but we gotta go live life and not just think about it!

I love you, for all the flaws and problems you think you have, still much love.