May 2021 – Page 2 – Sweat & Sparkle

Pain

I feel like a reanimated corpse after barely digging my way out of a long-buried coffin. Monday morning, I felt the stirrings of a mild headache. I didn’t think much of it, popped an Aleve, went back to work. Soon the headache slammed in like a punishing freight train, and if it wasn’t a migraine, I don’t know what it was. My head felt like it was being sadistically and mercilessly squeezed by giant iron fingers. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I retreated to the bed and buried my throbbing head in the pillow.

I didn’t wake up until I felt my husband’s hand on my forehead, checking for a fever, since he had just gotten home and didn’t know what was wrong. The next day or so was a blur of agonizingly holding my head, taking pain medicine like candy, feeling sick to the stomach, and finally collapsing with my tormented head in my husband’s lap as he gently rubbed my forehead, trying desperately to ease the pain.

Yesterday the headache from hell finally abated enough for me to sit upright, put on some clothes besides pajamas, and turn on my laptop to pretend to work. Last night I was able to take a long, hot shower and start to gradually feel human again, a little at a time.

Today I am double-timing it, trying to catch up from being damn near out of it the last two days. I am moving tentatively, afraid that sudden or jarring movements will trigger the headache to come back. I don’t want it back!

Needless to say, there weren’t many workouts the last day or so. I couldn’t even consider it. I will try a gentle walk today, nothing too wild and crazy. No breakdancing here today, folks. Sorry! Maybe next week 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day!

I wasn’t online yesterday, so I am a bit late with my Mother’s Day wishes. After I called my mom, my older stepson let me know that he was coming over to spend the day with me for Mother’s Day. It was a happy surprise.

I didn’t ask him why he wasn’t heading over to his biological mother’s trailer to spend the day with her. First, I have always told the kids that their relationship with their mother is between them and her. Second, well…I haven’t exactly been in a coma the last decade or so. I know what he has been put through, how he has been treated, what he has listened to. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I was just happy to see him. Watching him with his father is so much fun. They are both colossal smart asses, and as they try to one-up each other, they glance over at me to see if I am laughing harder at their joke than the other’s. They are alike in many ways, like being gifted artists, but so drastically different in others. For example, my older stepson gets embarrassed a lot easier than my husband, and his ears actually turn red, which we tease him about. He also cares much more what other people think, something my husband and I have tried hard to get him to let go of, for his own sake.

My stepson had brought some drawings to show his dad, and he sat down on the couch in between us so we could both see them. It reminded me of when he was little, tucked in between us, showing us something, telling us a story, just happy to be together. As he told us what each drawing was, and he and his dad hashed out edits he might make, I grabbed my phone and sneaked a picture of the two of them together, lost in their moment.

I don’t think they realize how beautiful their relationship is. They bicker like any other father and son, and one trait they most definitely share is hard-headedness (and denying it), but ever since he was little, the two of them have been like two peas in a pod. They are full of non-stop joking and picking at each other when they are together, and both of them get a troublemaking gleam in their eyes when they are near each other. They feed off each other, get louder, more energetic, but they are also affectionate and always hug each other good-bye and say “I love you”.

We sat a long time after dinner, just talking and joking around and catching up. It’s still hard sometimes for me to see him as a young man instead of the little boy he was when I met their dad. I suppose that never really goes away.

He had hugged me as soon as he saw me yesterday and said, “Happy Mother’s Day.” I did, indeed, have a very happy Mother’s Day. I hope all of you did too!

Change

I saved this quote quite some time ago and have been reflecting on it for a while. Last March, when everyone’s lives were turned upside down, a series of important changes were set off like rows of dominoes for me. Some of those changes, like my career shift, have been tremendously beneficial to me in many ways. And others, like my weight loss efforts, have ebbed and flowed, surged and died, flared and fizzled.

Ironically, I actually am at almost the exact same place, weight-wise, a year later. It’s frustrating and more than a little embarrassing, but I am not content to sit down, grow moss, and stay right here. I will not be in the same place a year from now. I won’t allow it.

But what about other ways? Besides my job change, I feel like I have changed quite a bit in my mindset and attitude. I will never be a skipping, campfire-song-singing, daisies-in-my-hair optimist, and no one will nominate me for sainthood, but I have moved away from anger and toward finding peace in my life, no matter what others choose to do or say. It’s a gradual process, and far from perfect, but being a work in progress is a lifetime quest.

The importance of that shift was driven home by seeing someone earlier this week that we haven’t seen in almost a year. It made me quite sad. We may as well have just seen her yesterday, because absolutely nothing has changed. Her bitterness, pettiness, and unpleasantness were still etched deeply in her face. She was still frowning, still sour, still unhappy. Her behavior was cringingly childish. It struck me that it must be exhausting to be so miserable all the time, even at events that should bring her pride and happiness.

I can’t do anything to change that for her. That is all in her hands. I wish I could help her, even if just for the sake of others in her life, but people need to be ready for change and need to orchestrate it themselves. It was a lesson well learned for me to continue focusing on changing more than a number on the scale for myself. My health is important, and so are what I hold in my heart, my head, my soul.

One year later, quite a bit internally has changed for me. Maybe it was necessary to do that first, before successfully tackling the outside. Time will tell!

Inspiring

One of my goals this week is to go running at least twice, so after work yesterday, I dug out my running shoes and headed to the gym. I used to love running, but getting back to running and being a runner are two very different, distinct things. I am still very much in the “Oh dear Lord, this hurts, and how much longer is this going to last, for the love of God?” phase of getting back into running. It’s unpleasant, but it’s my own fault I have to go through this again, and there’s no way through it but to do it.

I wanted to quit after the first mile or so, but I just kept playing with the speed, running a little faster for a bit, then easing back to catch my breath. By doing that, I was able to cover 4 miles.

When I slowed to a walk to cool down, a woman on a treadmill nearby said something loudly. Since I was the only one close to her, I assumed she was talking to me, so I took out my earbuds and said, “What?”

She said, “That was so inspirational!”

I was lacking oxygen, mind you, and I was tired and worn out, so I had to ask, “What was?”

She smiled and said, “You were! Very inspiring.”

At first, I cringed. When people say someone is inspiring, it typically means they didn’t believe that person was capable of doing whatever they just did. So basically, she was saying, “Who would have guessed your fat butt could stay in motion that long and not die instantly of cardiac arrest?”

But there are plenty of worse things to be called than inspiring, right? And if watching me huff and puff and try not to die on the treadmill motivated that woman in any way, then I feel honored to be the one to inspire her. I smiled too and said, “Thank you.”

When I got home and told my husband about it, including how at first I felt a bit insulted, he said, “Don’t look for anything negative in it. She probably said it because you were out there working hard to make changes instead of just sitting on the couch.” I’m sure it was obvious I was struggling, too, but I kept going. Who knows? She may have hung in there just a little longer herself, waiting for me to cool down, so she could tell me that. It’s cool to think she had an extra-long workout because of me.

When I look at it that way, I can see how silly I was to not automatically appreciate the compliment the way it was intended. I guess I just found it hard to believe I was able to inspire anyone when I have so far to go to my goals. I’m happy she found inspiration in my struggle and in my refusal to just give up. It makes me want to keep going!