You know that moment when you realize that all the hard work you’ve been pouring into yourself, all the love you’ve been showering on yourself, stops happening? When going to the gym stops being “easy”…and when cooking something good and yummy vs just something yummy…is just so much easier? That moment when you stop being your priority?
I’m quite familiar with that moment. That moment happened about 2 months ago for me. After all the work I have put in, all it took was for my relationship to unexpectedly end, and it was like suddenly…I didn’t know who I was or what the hell to do with myself. All those things that seemed so easy, suddenly seemed s o h a r d. Suddenly, I was tired all the time. All I wanted to do was nap. The last thing I wanted to do was get in the car and go to the gym…no way. I’d rather lay on the couch watching something on tv, than going to work out. “What’s the point?” I heard myself say in the back of my mind over and over and over again.
I couldn’t go to the gym when all i could really do was cry. I cried at the gym when I did go, and was starting to feel a little bit like I was losing my mind.
I started making special trips to the store to stock up on chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. I stopped having sugar hangovers, because my body started to get used to having sugar all the time.
I keep trying to feel bad about it. And I don’t. I don’t love much about myself these days. I have a heat rash from the sun..it happens sometimes, and it’s particular unattractive. My hair doesn’t seem to do anything I want it to, mostly because I think it’s hot out. And I don’t feel fabulous in any of my clothes. Nothing has changed. My clothes are the same. I am the same. My hair is relatively the same. Nothing has changed.
Except my circumstances.
My circumstances now categorize me as “single”. I’m sad. I’m lonely. I miss my man. Neither of us want this to be over. But I don’t know that my love for him and my desire to be back together, is enough to make that happen. Sometimes, love isn’t enough.
Why? I don’t know why. Just sometimes, it’s not. Sometimes, I have moments of thinking that perhaps the Universe played a big giant joke on me. That after all these years of patiently (mostly) waiting for love to find it’s way to my door, it was just giant joke and I got Punk’d in the process. It sucks. Everything about it sucks.
And how am I dealing with it? By eating all the foods I’ve worked so hard not to eat for over a year. I haven’t started drinking. I’ve never been much of an emotional drinker. Thankfully I gave up smoking many many years ago. I’ve been eating. And not even all bad food. But I haven’t been eating when I should be eating. I’m not really paying attention to how much I’m eating, in that I’m not making sure I’m eating enough protein, or eating my fruit at the right times, or ensuring that I’m taking my vitamins when I know I should be. Stuff like that. Just not doing what I know to do. What I know works for me. I know that physical activity will make me feel emotionally better…and yet I don’t go to the gym.
Maybe because I get something out of suffering. Maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t actually even know. I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. And there ain’t nothing sexy about all that is there? No. There’s not. And yet…you know how often at the end of some scary movie, someone’s standing at the grave of someone who passed away during the course of the film, and as this person turns around to leave after shedding a few tears, a hand comes up and grabs an ankle or something? I kind of feel like the hand. Like…don’t consider me dead and buried just yet. I haven’t given up on love. I am madly in love with my man. The love of my life. The man I know I’m supposed to be with. We just can’t get it together at the moment. Or maybe he’s not the guy I’m supposed to be with. Who knows. But I feel like the hand. Like…don’t end the movie yet. Please. There’s more for me to do. There’s more for me to share. There’s more for me to love.
There’s just more.
And right now, I am buried under my circumstances. And my cell phone battery is about to die and the scene where my hand is supposed to come up out of the dirt isn’t for another hour.
What do I do until then?
Any strategies you have for getting through tough, emotionally charged times of stress when you know all there is to do is keep moving forward, towards your health goals. Any and all input and advice, and support will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Rita
Life Rising 
I can’t decide if this helpful advice or not, but sometimes I think you do just have to wallow. You have to be sad and all fucked up and hurting and brokenhearted. And then one day you get really tired of being sad and broken all the time. So you go for a walk, and the next day you go the gym and then you start eating healthy and the you cut out sugar again…
Sometimes I think we do more harm than good when we push ourselves to quickly through our suffering.
It’s just a theory. Sending you lots of love.
xo
Shit. How’d you do that? Make me cry like that…just with a few words? I don’t even know if I’m wallowing anymore. On Saturday, while in my cold shower, in Portland, I had an epiphany. I wanted him back. And I didn’t know how that would happen. But all the love I was pouring out over there onto him, I needed to pour that all over myself. So I started a mantra in my head. And all I said was “I love you Rita”…over and over and over. And that kept my focus from straying over there…and it made a huge difference for me. Just in opening my heart. Keeping me present.
When I got home, I shared with him. I poured my heart out. Told him what I wanted for us. Everything. If I were to die today or tomorrow, or the next day, he would know just how I felt about him. Leaving nothing unsaid.
Today. I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I suppose that’s the part that doesn’t make sense. Maybe.
I like your theory. Thank you. xo