frustration – Sweat & Sparkle

Starting Now

I can be my own worst enemy at times. After a knee injury and then two very unpleasant rounds of antibiotics sidelined me for about three weeks, I am just now working my way back to any semblance of my routine, and it’s a struggle.

You would think I could muster up some grace for myself, considering the injury and illness were not my fault, and certainly not much fun. Instead, I have allowed my frustration and disappointment to get the best of me. This has pushed my goal deadlines back by several weeks, and my excitement has turned to aggravation, worry that I won’t reach my goals at all, and then heaps and heaps of self-blame and anger.

Yeah, it’s as delightful as it sounds. I tell myself how irrational it is to be mad at myself for something I couldn’t possibly control, but my inner critic is relentless and harsh as hell. The problem is, it’s making it very difficult to get back onto my feet. How do I move forward, when I keep shoving myself back down into the dirt?

Last night, I decided to talk to my husband about it. He is the most honest and straightforward person I know. He doesn’t believe in sugarcoating the truth, and it’s one of the many, many things I love about him. I know that any words of wisdom from him come straight from his heart.

I was glad that I opened up to him. We talked for a good while, and he gave me a healthy dose of tough love mixed with encouragement and compassion, exactly what I needed. He said he didn’t know why I am so tough on myself, but that he wished he could change that, and that he wished he could replace that negative voice in my head with his, telling me how beautiful and strong I am, instead of tearing myself down.

So, starting right now, I am committing to this promise to him, and to myself: that I will stand back up, brush myself off, acknowledge that the setback has slowed me down and delayed the finish line for some of my goals, but that I am absolutely going to move forward again, take good care of myself, and get back to work.

Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.

For me. For him. For us.

Closure

I did a lot of thinking this weekend. I believe in truly understanding myself, my feelings, and clawing to the root of a problem instead of settling for what is often just a trivial top coat.

One thing I never anticipated about being a stepparent is that it gets substantially more difficult as the kids get older. I naively expected them to automatically surge forward, shape their own lives, and shed the straitjackets forced onto them during an abnormally chaotic childhood.

I assumed that is they want to do. Who wouldn’t? That is where I went wrong. I could not live under the suffocating thumb of malfunctioning individuals. I would be itching to heave their oppressive weight from my shoulders, spread my wings, and fly as high as I could.

The kids are not me. They will react, respond, and make choices based on what they are comfortable with, where they want to be, what they are willing to accept from themselves and others.

That has been my struggle: expecting the kids to want better for themselves, to hold higher expectations for themselves and for others, to fight to rise above the behaviors modeled for them all these years, and I am completely bewildered when that is not the reality.

I am not writing this to put down my stepchildren. I love them. I do not support all of their decisions, because I feel that they are selling themselves short, but I do finally understand that they are hesitant to unfurl wings that were discouraged and disparaged, by people they should have been able to trust, for as long as they can remember. They have grown up with unquestioned norms that inflict immeasurable wounds, but for them, that is simply the way it is.

I get it. It’s more comfortable, more familiar, for them to stay under that smothering rock, to be told what to think, to continue what they have learned and what they know best: lying, sneakiness, dependency, dysfunction. It’s sad, but I do see where it comes from. It would be hard not to.

Of course I expect them to rise above that, to want to be better than that…because I want better than that for them.

I don’t give them a free pass for accepting such low standards. Two of them have graduated high school and can no longer blame anyone, no matter how toxic, for the status of their lives. Where they are and who they are now is completely up to them, no matter how much they wish to foist responsibility onto anyone else.

I recently read (about narcissistic mothers), “Without proper healing, the child will pick up where the parent left off, by self sabotaging.” That made me sad. Yes, that is what seems to be happening with three of my stepchildren: they have not been given (and have not pursued) the opportunity to honestly face their upbringing, deal with it, heal, and move on in a healthier manner. Their self-sabotage is blatant to anyone who understands the situation without blinders. The fact that it doesn’t appear to be obvious to them makes me worry even more about them, the damage inflicted on them by others, and the denial of any problem that means they will not seek a healthier, saner path.

I can’t fix this for them. My husband and I have taught, coached, lectured, demonstrated, explained, modeled — have done everything but perform interpretative dance — to help them grow and learn and want better than the hand they were dealt by people who have ultimately failed them. We have counteracted as best we could with the limited time we had.

As they get older, it becomes more and more their own responsibility to direct and steer their lives. Watching them make choices that restrict, hinder, and obstruct their own growth and happiness is nothing short of heartbreaking. It can only considered a victory by those who self-servingly stifled them in the first place.

Part of a child’s maturation process involves the parents growing and learning as well. I know it is time to let go of that steering wheel for some of my stepchildren, even if I don’t support the direction they are heading. I have offered the best guidance, advice, and instruction that I could. What they do with it from here is up to them. If they choose to follow the footsteps of the same ones who deliberately shattered their wings, I cannot fathom it or condone it, but I refuse to hurt myself by taking responsibility for their crippling decisions.

I wish them the best. I pray for the best for all of them. I will always love them. Maybe someday they will wish for better, will stand up, and will strike their own path, and finally be truly happy.

The Other Side

Thursday already? This week is flying by. So far this morning has been quiet and peaceful, just me and my teacup and my computer. The novelty of me working from home wore off for my cat last week some time, and he no longer supervises me, although he still partakes in his daily stroll across the keyboard for old times’ sake.

This week launched with hassle after hassle, from issues with the server at the office, which we rely on to work from home, to our dinosaur of a home computer protesting about suddenly being used all day long. I did some clean-up, some scanning, some sweet-talking, and it’s decided to behave again. For now.

It started to get to me. I was annoyed, stressed out, and I let it start compounding, rolling like a snowball, picking up the aggravation and uncertainty of the lockdowns and the virus and everything being closed and the nasty, negative, petty headlines when people should be focused on just doing what is right and helping each other.

My husband reminded me that I had just said, maybe a week before, that things will get worse before they get better, and the only parts we have any direct control over are how we react and how we treat each other. So I took a deep breath and took my own wise, practical, and always-correct advice. (See how I slipped in some self-congratulatory praise there?)

Now, I read just enough news to stay informed of anything major happening in the world I need to know about, like zombie outbreaks or an asteroid hurtling a million miles an hour toward my house. I focus on my new workout routine, on my health, my family’s health. I refuse to become a cranky, hissing, spitting curmudgeon and just make everything worse.

I saw a quote recently that I wish I had saved, because now I can’t find it. But it was basically that people are griping and complaining about social distancing and stay-at-home orders, whining about being bored, pining for things to go back to the way they used to be, when maybe instead, people should see this as an opportunity to slow down, to assess their lives, to take a good look around and see what could change, what could be better. Why wish for what used to be when some editing may be required?

The next month, two months, or however long this goes on is going to pass us by, whether we are under stay-at-home orders or not. What are you doing now to make sure that a better version of you emerges on the other side?

Karl Jung

Rise Above

When I first started this blog, I wrote in my header, “I am strong enough to rise above the drama.” Some days, I think that might just be wishful thinking! It takes a lot to not drown in the frustration, stress, and aggravation of constantly dealing with toxic, selfish people.

This week, I am trying hard to focus on tough workouts, sticking to my meal plans, and reaching a mini-goal. It would be a lot easier to do that if I didn’t have to worry constantly about my stepkids.

My husband and I have been doing our best to teach the oldest child, the one who moved in with us earlier this year, how to take care of himself. I would say that Psycho didn’t bother to teach him anything, but truth be told, she has nothing to offer him. How can she possibly teach him to be an independent adult when she is completely and helplessly reliant on her father? She isn’t even sane enough to be embarrassed by it.

All three of the younger kids have gotten F’s in school recently, a bright red flag that something is wrong. I can take my pick of countless bizarre and maladjusted things that could be the problem over there.

It is maddening. I see the chaos, the low expectations, the lack of guidance, and I know that we have only a weekend here and there to teach the kids better, to try to make a difference. I want the kids to be strong, independent, hard-working, able to think for themselves, make their own decisions, stand on their own two feet.

That is not, by a long shot, what anyone besides me and my husband wants for them, though. Keeping them dependent, clipping their wings, means they won’t dare question anything. Pitting them against each other means they can’t team up or stand up for each other. Essentially, the kids are beaten down so that others in their lives can keep them tightly under their thumbs, tell them what to think, what to do. I suppose it makes those people feel powerful, when it truly boils down to cowardly abuse and manipulation. And if the kids never aspire to be any better, then those around them can pretend that how they live is not pathetic and dysfunctional.

The very first time my oldest stepson paid his own bill, with money he earned himself, he became more of an adult than his egg donor will ever be. I’m not sure he realized that. In a way, I hope he didn’t, because who wants to face that their mother is nothing more than an enormously overgrown, caterwauling infant?

I don’t know if even half of what we say and teach and preach sinks into the kids’ brains. Everything we say is contradicted the moment they go back to their other home. I hope, for their sakes, that at least one thing sticks: the desire to rise above. To be better than what they observe around them.

So I keep talking to them. I keep showing them things. I keep teaching. And I will keep doing my best to also rise above, to not get weighed down by the aggravation and stress and worry. Maybe if I can do it, it will help them see that despite the negativity, despite others doing their best to shove them down, they can rise above all of this bullshit too.

Gain :(

Want to know a recipe for disaster? Try two very stressful weeks, ongoing car issues, work hassles, and skipping weigh-in last week. For me, at least, all of this mixed together resulted in a gain of 3.6 pounds at this morning’s weigh-in. Grrrrrr! I am so angry with myself. It’s my first gain since I started over, and I am very disappointed in myself.

It could have been worse. In fact, it could have been a lot worse! The only reason the gain isn’t even higher is that I forced myself to keep up my workouts.

Well, it is what it is. Not much I can do about my bad choices over the past two weeks except stop making bad decisions!

Over the past two weeks, my car has been back to the mechanic six times (yes, for the love of God, SIX times). I am breaking up with this mechanic, because I strongly feel it should not have taken this long to diagnose the problem. That whole situation didn’t help with my stress level, but yesterday I picked up my car, and so far, so good. I gave my poor baby a good cleaning, polished up the interior with Armor All, and stopped on my way to work this morning to vacuum it and shake out the car mats. (Can you tell I can’t stand when someone else has been in my car?)

Time to reorganize, regroup, get into the mindset for a fresh start. I already set up a new weight chart for myself, counting down two pounds per week, which would put me at my goal weight around October 14. I’m disappointed that I won’t reach my goal by the end of September like I’d hoped, but it’s my own fault. And I need to do something about it NOW, before I push back my goal even farther.

Yesterday at work, a co-worker told me I am looking slimmer. It meant a lot, even though I hadn’t weighed in yet and didn’t know the damage yet. Of course I already knew I was going to have a gain! But at least, apparently, it’s not obvious to anyone else yet. And it won’t be!

Back at it this week, Insanity Max 30 workouts, food diary, no excuses, and I will have a good loss at my next weigh in.