Taking care of me

I am in the middle of a crazy game of indoor fetch, so if my thoughts are more scattered than normal, you know why. Sometimes, most of the time, I am very hard on myself. I expect a lot out of myself. Much more than I would ever expect out of anyone else. It's good to have expectations of yourself. If you don't, it's like having no goals. Where do you get? But if you expect too much, and are too hard on yourself, it can be hard to get anywhere either.

I have been getting migraines for at least 5 years now. I can't even remember when they started, I just know that I always had them when I lived in NJ. Stress and anxiety play a huge role in causing my migraines. They aren't caused by chocolate or wine or stuff like that like some people. I have relied for a long time on medication to control them. That they were a part of my life and I just had to take this horrible prevention medicine with nasty side effects to reduce them. And live with getting 4-8 a month and be happy that it wasn't more. Changing medicines or doctors really isn't going to do me much good. I need to change. To manage stress. To put less pressure on myself. To do more things for me. To make choices for me and not for others.

My divorce is coming up next Friday. And I have been shoving it down. The emotions. The finality of it all. To deal with work, to get through my training, to get through day to day life. Mark has been really nice lately. He took care of the whole post office ordeal. He offered to pay for a day a week of dog walking. It brought up emotions, thoughts, doubts, anger, guilt, every emotion you could think of. I am going through the grieving process again. And I feel like, I don't have time, I have to do this and that. My work, my training. But I have to make time. I need to grieve. If I don't I will hang onto the pain for ever.

I have a meeting scheduled for the day of the divorce and I said I would come in because I felt like I should be there. I put the pressure on myself to be there. No one else. So, tomorrow I am going to ask if I can miss the meeting or if the meeting can be changed. I can't imagine I will be okay to come into work after my divorce. I need to do something for myself. Take care of me.

My training has been so so this week. I miss one workout and I feel so guilty about it. And then it snowballs and makes me feel bad and I miss more or don't do what I am supposed to. It is just no good. On Tuesday I had a migraine again, took my medicine, it didn't help, took more which helped mostly but made me dizzy. I ran into a wall at work and had to look around to make sure no one saw. I'd like to say that was the first time that has happened. So I skipped my track workout and went to get a 90 min massage instead.

Wednesday I had some logic for doing strength training instead of biking and that was good but then felt bad about not biking. My swim in the pm was good.
300 wu with fingertip drag drill
200 pull
6x50 kick with dolphin kick down on 1:15
2x{3x200 descend on 3:30, 1:00 rest, 4x100 on 2:00}
did 200's in 3:20, 3:15, 3:06 for first round, then didn't see for second round ( too busy with 4 people in my lane), first round of 100's in 1:27-1:29, second in 1:27-1:31
100 cd
2900m total

This morning I ran easy for 40 mins. It was chilly but sunny. I ran with the doggies and we ran slow, courtesy of Coopy Coopersen's pace making. I had therapy after work which helped me recognize that I do need to take more time for me. And that I have been putting too much pressure on myself lately during workout time for it to be me time. I needed to have that pointed out. I don't want to be putting so much pressure on myself to do well in my workouts or in triathlon. It is supposed to be part of my fun me time and to have it pointed out that it wasn't made it clear that I am slipping back where I don't want to be.

After that I biked. And cried. I biked an hour outside, my first ride outside after work this year and it was almost dark when I finished. I thought about taking time for myself. About how tired I was. About how a year ago I never would have been out biking because Mark always called me and yelled at me if I was out after work on my bike, and if I didn't answer he would keep calling or come home from work and yell at me for "forcing" him to leave work to make sure I wasn't dead in a ditch or something. I cried about how I hated feeling like I couldn't even bike when I wanted because of him. And how weird it felt to be out there, free, without being harassed, or feeling guilty that I was "sneaking out" to bike. I thought about where I thought I was going to be this year and how different things were. How my dreams and hopes had changed. How I didn't really know what to dream and hope for anymore. How confused and scared I was.

I'm going to get through all of this somehow. But I don't have to go around pretending I'm fine all of the time. I don't know what a normal reaction is supposed to be, but I'm not really normal anyway. And I don't want to be. I want to do things my way. I can't shove my emotions inside. I can't do it anymore. It hurts. It makes me physically ill. If people have a hard time with the fact that I can't toughen up and deal with it and just go about my daily routine, then too bad. I can't. I need time. I tried to be tough and it didn't work for me. I need to be nice to myself. Spoil myself. Do some things that I like, that are for me. That make me happy. And not worry about whether work is getting done, or workouts are done, or if times are fast, or if the house is clean enough, or anything. Just take care of me.