If you haven't read "do something," it's a couple entries back.
This is an addendum to that one, brought on by intermittent days and hours, since then, of doing absolutely nothing. I have periods of time where I'm thrilled to come home, leash up the dog, and head out to the neighborhood streets, Pitbull piercing my earholes and my geriatric feet pounding the pavement. Some days, though, like today, I've barely made it out of my bed. The group I'm in, "2023 Streak," though it seems silly, right now is probably the biggest reason I force myself to move at all on these emotionally cloudy, soul-storm days. Call it competitiveness or stubbornness, I've got this extrinsic motivation, for now, that keeps me sallying forth.
If I don't get out of the house with tennie-clad feet, or straddle an arse-killing indoor bike seat, I'm drowning in guilt. That guilt and my ever-present, rather ridiculous propensity to land in the worst kind of overthinking leads me to then craft all sorts of what I feel are necessary explanations to Amy (our streak group leader) as to what I've been doing in order to fulfill my end of the group requirements. The fact, thus far however, is this: "something" is way better than "nothing." Am I rationalizing? Does my "something" really count as something, or is it nothing? To me, who knows me pretty well, it's the former.
My "something," today, for example, looked like fixing my own coffee instead of asking Aaron to do it. My "something," today, was pulling unbelievable amounts of clean laundry from several bins in our room; I chose walking from one side of the bed to the other, several times, while folding it, when what I really wanted to do was scrap the whole plan and crawl under the safety of my blankets. I actually - I'm not kidding - quite literally walked around while I folded. Also counted as "something" today: walking to the trash outside instead of using the inside cans. Twice. "Something" was also matching towel seams and corners, shaping the colored terry-cloth into the just-right, shelf-sized squares for our bathroom linen closet. "Something" was cleaning counters and purging the junk and empty bottles under the kitchen sink today, when my body and the sad-tired screamed for those dark, heavy piles of escape on my bed. "Something" was taking the puppers out a couple of times, walking the driveway a little extra, dodging raindrops and counting the few minutes of ambulation as "at least I'm not in bed" moments.
The point of this is that I chose movement, however slight.
Instead of what I wanted today, which was to do absolutely nothing. Though I'm sure if the walls could talk, they'd tell you this day was pretty uneventful, exercise-wise.
I'll have more Pitbull-piercing-and-pavement-pounding "somethings." I'll keep going, Lord-willing. I don't want to quit. I've got to get to a place in my brain and in my heart, though, that is ok if I do stop. I've got to get to a place where I don't berate myself or beat myself up if it doesn't go the way I planned, or if I have a day or days that I don't feel like moving or if the sad-tired wins out over the stubborn-competitive. It's important to me, though, to see this through to the end, cash pot or not. Taking care of myself, physically and/ or mentally is a good thing, but "finishing" something means more, though, somehow. I'm not good at finishing- I usually have one reason or another as to excusing myself from anything I start, be it a project, school, a relationship (see "house cleaning," "Jenny's failed marriages," or "unfinished hall painting job"), and it would be nice to see one thing - ANY thing - to completion, truthfully.
It's day 111, and it has been another day of mostly nothing. Seriously, and with complete transparency, mostly nothing. It's the "something" that counts, though, on these days, and I need to be ok with that. I need to be ok with me.
I'm working on it.
Selah.
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