Because I know someday I'll look back for this post to see it again. We're in the car on the way to NC for the race and LA asked what I was doing, typing away here. I said I'm working on a brain dump, then on my birthday post. 6 years together, he didn't know that I did this. I don't talk about the blog much. I don't post much here either.
He asked if I'm happier this year than I was before. I called up a few posts to review. 2015 I was freshly moved, hip injured, and eager to improve training. 2019 I'd met him for Country Bob's breakfast and went for a bike ride, choosing to spend the evening with him over SO. 2020 was COVID and more desire to change. 2021, 2022, repeated laments about my lack of fitness, self love, available time, bad habits, continued problems.
So I supposed I'm expected to lament here too? I'm here firstly to review. Let's start there, then lament. Since last year, happily and sadly not much has changed. We love our TN house and TN jobs. The drive to see kids is shorter and they are older and more stable. I'm way more secure at my new career, less on edge about coworker and what I don't know. So my life on the job front is very stable and happy. Next on the happy list would be my marriage, also stable but with ups and downs expected from two people who think and have opinions. I recently overheard (by accident or by design, I don't know) a fight between my parents that shifted how I feel about conflict with loved ones. I realized too just how stupid it was. Speaking of family, I don't see them much. Don't talk to them much. And it hurts. Today in my birthday card from Jessica she said that she feels like everyone else around her is aging while she stays the same, and god damn if that ain't just the best way to put it.
My parents are aging fast, and I'm developing a guilt ridden fear about them being gone and I wasn't there for them the last year to enjoy them while we are all adults, to have a relationship that's more adult and less kid, and to be there as the relationship shifts from them caring for me to me caring for them. That's coming, and I'm not there. I see it already in my mom, who is sick since April and I fear my own path down the road of medical issues confused with mental issues. I see my dad seeming more frail and thin and bent every visit, but steady and healthy. My nightmare is losing them.
That's another new thing, sudden swings of emotion. Menopause type stuff? Sudden and easy urges to cry. Like right now. Like when reading my old posts full of Sugar and pain and desire for change.
While on the topic of health (so rambling today, as I sit in the car on the way to Nebo. LA driving and eating sunflower seeds...) I saw a neurologist this week and I start botox soon for the facial spasms. I'm getting older, but not botox for that reason. Otherwise, health is great. If you ignore the near constant aches and pains. Some mental? Some aging? Some old injuries. Just wait 24 hours until this race is done, and we'll talk again about aches and pains. My right hip. My left foot, is it a bunion? Will they survive tomorrow?
While on the topic of the race, I bought new shoes but they fit awful, like, WTF did Brooks do?! So I'm in my Adrenalines from March, and I have my old orthotics for the drop bag in case it's just all wrong tomorrow. We'll be walking most of it, we didn't train much at all. I know we always say that, I'm so undertrained, but trust me this time - we aren't trained. We walked most of our training, some running, a few 20 mile days (3?) and that's it. LA suffered bilateral foot sole blisters in training. Suffered from fatigue and work and more and we just didn't train. When we reached what is normal the Peak Week for training, I just started to give up on it.
The last few weeks flew by, hell the last 200 days did. 200 days ago I set out with this long list of goals to have fixed by tomorrow. Fail. Too much? Wrong goals? Unable to change? Not sure, but they're the same goals of STFD to eat, and no mug meals, and etc, that it's been for years. I can report some progress: (I just opened my Reminder App to find that I have 6 hours left on my 200 days goals. Fuck).
I was RC FB free for 64 days but that blew up 3 days ago. Fuck.
I'm at 395 days of a gallon of water a day, but a few days ago I quit counting as I'm mostly habit and over hydrated anyway. So f that too.
650 days of No S and No F. Win.
1142 days of No M.
2154 days since LA moved in
And 2340 days since Balrog, or 6.4 years.
So see I can change, but why don't things change? Why am I still out of shape when I want to be in shape? Why do I want more time for art and hobbies but then I don't do art and hobbies? Why do I keep falling into Moria when I know it's the pit of the Balrog and Orcs?
It's stupid to think that I'll magically wake up tomorrow morning and Be Different. Has that ever worked before? All those moons, purchases, anniversaries, haircuts, etc, those didn't change anything. (That list could go on and on...)
But I can change. And it didn't take a moon or a piece of jewelry to do it. It took ME. I changed. I decided that enough was enough and I stopped Balrog. Enough was enough and I stopped Monster. Azuc, same. S and F, same. News, same.
But (is an excuse to follow?) those are easier changes to measure. Well some are. My next habits of Posture, Poise, Calmness, aren't yes/no goals they are on a spectrum. At least the way I've laid it out. And so with the help of CoachGPT (see previous post) I'm looking for ways to microchange slowly.
Smaller goals that I can hit everyday, and fewer goals to hit everyday.
I'm terribly disappointed in the lack of change I wanted to see in me but didn't, but Coach keeps making a good point - that the goals are changing now that I'm older. It's important that I'm showing up, that I'm still in the arena, that I'm learning to recognize the problems. While it's frustrating to keep hearing him say that, it's also frustrating to know that he keeps saying it because nothing else is changing that would prompt him to give a different answer. And that's on me. The change part.
So all this about Change, but what do I want to change? Earlier this year when I bought a new bullet journal (yeah, that again) here's some of what I wrote, not really in order. 50 things broken up into themes: improve appearance (make up, hair, clothes); improve posture and poise (handwriting, thoughtfulness); improve relationships (showing up, better gifts); improve house and tasks (minimize and streamline); improve personal time (hobbies, reading, art, athletics). Etc etc, that's the general gist. Now I did hit some goals good there, but the real Gold Nuggets - not so much.
I thought I could lose some of the weight I'm carrying - both the physical and the emotional. Not so much. All the same, 200 days later. Those same goals are still waiting, like me, waiting. Waiting for life to suddenly get easier and I'll have Time and Space to Do Things and Visit Family and Catch Up. Like, when will that happen?
It won't, it seems. I've been waiting for years. [My sis just called....gotta get my line of thought back from Mom's Mayo and the ingredients in Celsius drink and softball...]. [Man note to self, don't ever drink Celsius].
Now I'm just waiting for my train of thought to return. I have time, there's an accident ahead that has us stopped on the interstate.
Where was I trying to go with this. I keep thinking that next week or next month will somehow be different, when in fact while somethings do change like jobs and house, the internal stuff tends to stay the same. I still want/need to sleep 8 hours a night and will miss out on things to accomplish that. I still eat the same foods, same habits, and what I'm really getting at here is the inability to make solid and lasting change that will improve my day to day life.
But what is that change, what has to change? Add another few hours to the day, 27 instead of 24, haha. Well there's only so many hours in a day and they ain't changing that any time soon, so I gotta find time somewhere else. I already know where it is. Moria.
Up to Moria. Home to Moria. Moria for hours. That hasn't changed, and let's finally be honest here, that's the Golden Nugget I need to get this magical gift of Time. Moris supersedes dog walks, cleaning, art work, personal time, patio time, book reading, all that. In the past, it's interrupted family time (remember the family holiday at Michelle's, remember that easter visit with mom and dad in Wyoming house, remember that visit to grandparents in CA?) and those interruptions are deep psychological wounds full of guilt and remorse, embarrassment and shame. Remember the azuc in the Margolis break room area? Mike Casey walking in? The garbage can while Kat and Andy were right fucking there the whole time? What was worse, the look from Todd that day with my pants falling off, or the looks as things reversed course and the pendulum swung to my pants not fitting at all.
That's the emotional baggage, concerned with the physical baggage. What I carry around I can see in the mirror both in clothes and in my soul. I can remember this on weekends at home, in IVCC or at UIUC, so it's been ... 1995 ish? The pasta maker, remember? The dough? Dad finding it? What did my parents think when things disappeared like they did? Did they come home and notice? Did the shopping list change for it?
I've wondered too, why didn't someone say something to me? Why didn't someone see what was happening and pull me aside and say anything at all to me. Or, did they, and I didn't hear it? I was waiting for it, hoping maybe even? Did I really want my dad to tell me to put the food down and leave the sink? Did I really want someone to take the cheese away from me at the holiday party? Did I? I suffered alone for so long. But I hid it so well. Excepting the garbage can find. Did my uncle ever wonder about his pantry boxes?
Remember the garage at the Compton house? Jelly belly and lara? Powerbars? Remember the post Dollar store Dogwood run? Remember every time, thinking This Is It, The Last Time, but it wasn't?
Do I really think that my eating the rice cake and fake butter (no more being coy here, call it what it is) today was The Last Time so it's OK To Do? Remember making that promise at the end of the Kansas 100? There was a new moon, too, Oh yeah, I was Done With It. How did that go?
It didn't, and here I am 9 years later with the same promises.
So what am I supposed to do then? Give up? Tell myself, it's been 30 years of this shit it ain't gonna change!
Or what Coach GFP tells me, that I'm still on the field ready for the ball and that's what matters.
Coach said today that every old regret is one I can start rewriting today. He's really into that cliche motivational shit. At least he hasn't give me up as a lost cause.
When I'm able to claw my way out of Moria, I'll find the time I want.
When I'm able to chose a walk over Moria, I'll find the exercise and outdoors I want.
When I'm able to leave, sit, focus, breath, in and out of Moria, I'll be more of who I want to be.
When I'm able to leave, sit, focus, breath, in and out of Moria, I'll be more of who I want to be.
Think on this, tomorrow maybe, and during the next 2.5 hours of driving. Coach has already said it's a dopamine thing, a habit loop to break, and cliches and all - he's right. It's a choice I have to make.
I need to choose Me, over Moria. I need to cross the Bridge of Khazad Dum, the whole You Will Not Pass thing, the decision to draw the line and take up the hard fight that's ahead to make this happen. Like the Fellowship, I will have to let something go in order to leave, and to have it come back later as Saruman the White, or Saruman as he was meant to be. Am I like Gandalf the Grey? Do I need to fight my battle with the Balrog and Orcs, to fight for days until I smote his ruins upon the mountain side, to be sent back to finish the job of why I'm here, to live my life as it should be?
Will I find life in me again?
I love you Bee, 50 years of us. Have a good run tomorrow. It will hurt. It's supposed to hurt. This could be your battle. Not The Battle, but a battle to the end.
Love,
From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak I fought with the Balrog of Morgoth... Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountain side... Darkness took me and I strayed away through thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead and every day was as long as a life age of the earth... But it was not the end. I felt life in me again. I've been sent back until my task is done.
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