Cleaning Up, Drying Out

All the things that I/we have been doing to gain some comfort in a time of insane upheaval, uncertainty, stress, fragility?  Ya, those aren’t working anymore.  Sure, sitting on the rocking bench outside in the sunshine with a cold beverage and some potato chips worked for awhile.  Chocolate worked for awhile.  Stronger drinks worked pretty well for awhile, too. 

The thing is though, it’s been almost three months, from mid-May to where we are now.  And nothing’s changed.  Well….some things have changed, but certainly not for the better.  So all the lazy comfort-y things quit working, what do I do now?

Clean Up and Dry Out!  I quit drinking alcohol on Sunday night and mean to stay stopped until September 6^th (that’ll be 31 days), whereby it’ll be a once/week thing instead of every day.  I closed the mouth-gate on anything that isn’t veggies, meat, fruit, fat, coffee or water until September 6^th after which it will become “treats” again, not the norm.

I’ve been looking for some ease within my hard-to-live life lately.  Lazy, easy, effortless.  It hasn’t worked at all and in fact it’s had the opposite effect.  I came to the conclusion on our week-long holiday that it never would work, either.  If you can’t get yourself some sort of comfort sitting in warm sunshine and trying to drown your anxiety in a lot of vodka and potato chips there, away from your regular life, it’s certainly not going to work here in the midst of the crazy!

I was worried, that once I realized that it wasn’t working, that I would become resigned to feeling like crap and being depressed and listless and stressed and unhappy, that there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  But what actually happened, when I picked a date and time to change directions, is that I feel empowered.  Somehow it’s stopped the spinning wildly, out-of-control, messed up head feelings.  I feel like maaaaybe I have a plan again, like I miiiight be able to find my mid-ground again before too long.  In a daily grind of uncertainty and stress, it feels good to have set up some boundaries and guidelines for myself.  Structure. 

I’m not so ridiculous as to think that it’s all simplicity going forward…..coming down off of sugar, chips, vodka (then rinse and repeat as needed) is awful.  Considering that I found this new need for structure/plan during Alien Week, it’s possibly even worse.  Being reminded by my very hungry tummy, just how quickly real food is burned as fuel is uncomfortable.  Knowing that I Have To Find A Way to get to the gym in the mornings makes me feel icky inside…..who wants to go back after an absence this long?!  But, that powerless feeling of wishing for something but doing nothing to actually get it is gone. 

It’s absurd to me now, having a bit of clarity, that I would throw down everything that I’ve worked and sweated and cried and fought for…….it seems absolutely crazy to allow my personal self to implode in the catastrophic way that was coming.

I’d love to end this post and say “I’m good now, I’m back and solid and completely in control.”.  That would be cocky and arrogant and completely untrue.  What I am is at least standing back on the right road with a road map and a plan and a destination in mind.

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My Tummy Hurts!

Oh, this Monday is not cool.  Not cool at all!  This very uncool Monday is the result of some very poor decision making over the weekend.  Very poor!  I blame it on Friday.  After work I had plans to come home and clean the house, throw in some laundry, make a nice dinner and then do something, a walk or the garden or something.  What actually happened was that my body was so exhausted from a full week of gym mornings that I laid down on one of the sofas in the front room and promptly fell asleep for 2 hours.  That pretty much threw me for the rest of the evening, I woke up feeling like crap.  I did end up making dinner and then we did actually go for a nice 4.5km walk after dinner but I just felt like I’d totally failed at my jobs on Friday night and that put me in a foul mood.

When we got home from our walk we had to bake a zillion potatoes for a BBQ on Saturday night and by 11pm, the house smelt SO GOOD of baked potato that we caved and cut one in half and had a potato snack in what was pretty close to the middle of the night.  Aaaand that set off a weekend of potato craving and satisfying said potato craving.  Not the worst thing to crave, I suppose, but potatoes stay with me for daaaaaaayyyyyssss and if you happen to want to add a bunch of alcohol, lack of water and a salty seafood stew, that would explain an inexplicable weight gain of 3.8 pounds in two days.  Ugh.  Extra “Ugh.” since I have a rather fitted dress that I have to wear on Thursday. 

38 potatoes, washed, poked and ready to roast.

The love affair is over! Jose makes me grouchy!

Yesterday in the morning Ray decided it was time for me to take our motorhome for a drive so that he could show me the finer points of driving an enormous vehicle down the road.  I tell you, it was like learning to drive a car all over again including but not limited to difficulty using the brakes and then running up on a sidewalk (which could have been very, VERY bad had all the stars not been perfectly aligned right then).  Following that little adventure Ray also decided that a little wind in the face might be a good thing for a Jose Cuervo & red wine hangover so we geared up and took both bikes out on a ride.  I’m not really too bad anymore, injury wise, for riding but I suck the big one as far as skill goes.  I’ve been riding for 4 years, this year we’ve put 300km on, last year was 8,000 and the two previous years were 30,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) each.  With Ray’s injury last year and mine this year (and the sucky weather) our riding really reduced and that really reduced my confidence.  Add a close call a couple years ago and then my car accident and I’m in poor conditioning for riding!  Ray’s in a similar boat, seat-time wise, but he’s been riding for soooo long that it’s a second nature to him.  When I watch him ride it’s like he is the bike and it’s seamless.  When I ride I know that I’m moreso sitting on a machine and trying to manipulate it into doing what I want.  Totally different.

For this week my goal is to drink a lot of water and eat a lot of veggies and stay the hell away from alcohol and sodium.  I’m evidentally not as good at processing alcohol as I once was and my descent into Jose Cuervo after a bottle of red wine has put me a little under the weather.  OK.  A lot under the weather.  6 feet under the weather??  I feel like crap and even my hair looks like it has a hangover!

Tonight after work my waxist comes over (Ray has a very small enormous crush on her) and then we’re going to run into the valley for some cheap(er) fuel.  I really would like us to get a walk while it’s not raining and the grass also needs to be cut.  It’ll be a busy day!  Tomorrow is early gym morning and I sure hope I am not still sweating Mexican Fire-Water out of my pores by tomorrow!