Taking Stock of My Progress

It's a good idea to take stock of life every now and then.  I tend to get so focused on the mountain ahead I still have to climb that I forget to look back at how far I've come.  I don't take that moment to look out over the view I've already got because I'm so fixated on getting to the top.  And then I just get frustrated and down on myself.  Plus, if I don't take stock, I don't realize I've left the trail entirely and wandered.

So tonight I'm taking stock.  It's been almost a year since I went to the psychiatrist and she basically told me to change my entire life.  Okay, not really, but it felt like that.  I took it seriously.  I worked really hard at it.  Where am I now?

Let's break it down to the different areas she wanted me to work on:
Sleep:  I am getting more sleep.  I am going to bed earlier (not consistently at the same time, but consistently earlier).  I used to be up until 1 or 2 almost every night, frequently 3 or 4.  I then got up to get the kids off to school and crawled back into bed for a nap -- every day.  Now I shut down for the night around 11:30 or 12 (earlier many nights) and am up at seven.  I get the kids up and off.  Sometimes I go back to bed for a nap, but not every day.  And the waking at seven is consistent.  Even on weekends I wake about that time, without an alarm.  My body is becoming conditioned to it.  It even lasted through the summer last year.  Instead of seeing how well I'm doing, I've been noticing the occasional naps and the inconsistent bedtimes and feeling ashamed of myself.  I really am getting much more sleep and have made great progress toward undoing a lifetime of bad habits.  To the point where my family is feeling the effects.  Most nights our house is completely shut down (lights off, most of us asleep) by 9:30 or 10.  On the weekends it might be 11 or 11:30.  For a house full of teenagers who used to routinely stay up until 11 or later on school nights and whenever during the summer, it's incredible progress.  We are night owls by nature, but we've fought that nature and tamed it enough to be healthy.

Water:  I'm drinking more.  For a long time I was hitting that 96 ounces a day religiously.  I've slipped a bit.  I'm working on this one.  Seriously, the hardest part is to remember to take my water bottle to the kitchen with me and fill it up.  If I get back to my room and realize I didn't, I'll usually just put it off.  That means I don't hit my total for the day.  And, no, my kitchen isn't that far from my room.  It's a very poor excuse.  But I am drinking more than I used to and I am working on it.  I have made progress.

Exercise:  She wanted me to walk 20 minutes a day 4-5 times a week.  I suck at this one.  I worked hard at it for a while, but it was making my shins hurt.  I looked it up and realized that my lengthened stride (which I remember training into myself in high school when I spent a lot of time walking with a much taller friend) had to be adjusted back to a natural stride.  This helped.  But I have another problem with exercise (other than the tired and lazy part).  Whenever I do anything physical for more than a few minutes, my face and chest flush.  I go bright red and hot.  Not the traditional exercise overheating.  This can come from simply sweeping.  Even singing does it.  Almost like clockwork, at 20 minutes in I flush.  It's very uncomfortable (the doctor has no idea what this is).  The psychiatrist suggest that I do 2 ten-minute sessions instead.  Yeah, use your logic on me.  Some days I do.  Most days I don't.  Walking outside is less likely (which is too bad because I'm sure the vitamin D from the sun would help).  A bit of dancing with Just Dance 4 on the Wii is more likely.  Even though I'm not where I should be, I am still doing it more than I used to.  Tiny progress, but progress nonetheless.

No soda after 3:00pm, because it interferes with sleep:  Yeah, I kind of completely forgot about this one until I just reread my post from a year ago.  Once I started sleeping better I quit worrying about this.  I may or may not take another look at it.

Food:  I still suck at this.  In a big way.  It's still way too easy for me to not eat.  To forget to eat.  Or to decide it's not worth the work of preparing food.  I'm supposed to eat three meals and three snacks a day.  For months after my visit with her I did this meticulously.  I tracked everything I ate, making sure I was eating every two and a half hours.  Tracking how many servings of vegetables and how many of protein and how many of dairy and so on.  I did fabulously!  Seriously, my therapist and the psychiatrist were pretty much speechless at how well I did and how hard I was working.  And I remember when it fell apart.  My best friend got really sick.  I spent a lot of time in the hospital by her bedside.  I was careful even then.  I packed things to take with me so I wasn't dependent on finding something in the cafeteria.  I was still about 90% compliant with what the psychiatrist wanted.  And after my friend went home and I was no longer spending 8 hours a day taking care of her, I felt like I deserved a break.  I felt like it was okay to relax a bit.  I felt like I had earned a week of not tracking, of not being so careful.  And that week turned into another and another.  I tracked here and there but never really got back on it.  While I work to make healthier choices, I'm not doing fabulously.  There is progress.  I usually eat 2 or 3 meals a day and 1 or 2 snacks.  It used to be 1 meal a day and a snack or two on a good day.  And when I eat junk, I eat less of it.  Usually much less.

But the thing that made me slip up on the food is the same thing that makes me slip in the other areas.  There is still a part of me that says I've earned a break.  When I've worked hard or my life is heavy, I feel like I can stop taking care of myself.  Where does that come from?  When you spell it out like that it doesn't even make sense.  When I've worked hard or my life is heavy, I deserve to take better care of myself.  I deserve more of my attention.  I deserve to feel better.

Because those months when I worked my fanny off on this program, I felt better.  Not healed.  Not healthy.  But better.  I keep forgetting I deserve that.  But now that I've taken stock I remember.

Shut Up, Stupid Brain!

It's after four in the morning.  I'm tired.  It's dark and quiet.  Why won't you let me sleep?

Don't you understand what tomorrow will be like for me?  I have things to do and people counting on me.  I want to sleep.  Why can't you shut up?

I know you have a million ideas.  I know you want to plan for tomorrow, which chores we'll do and which errands we need to run. 

I know you want to review today, thinking about what we got done.  And, more importantly, what we didn't.  Yes, I know there is still so much to do.  But it's four in the morning; we really can't do it now.

If I go out and start cleaning the living room and sorting the books and toys one of two things will happen.  I will wake someone else up and they will be miserable, too.  Or, it will just make me even more awake and I won't get any sleep at all tonight.

It's easy for you.  You don't have to worry about limited energy.  Why are you the only part of me that never seems to get tired?

And why do you take such pleasure in torturing me?  Do you get some kind of sick satisfaction from keeping me up all night?  Is there a battle being waged between you and my body?

It's not fair, you know.  I am trapped in the middle.  Trying to maintain the peace.  Trying to meet your needs and my body's needs.  Do you have any idea how difficult that is?

Of course not.  You worry only about yourself.  It's all about you.  "Look at what I can do," and then you take the stage.  Performing songs, stories, and wondrous feats to dazzle the mind.  To occupy the thoughts and senses.  To stimulate the body into producing adrenaline.  Because you are afraid that if I go to sleep you will lose your audience.

I guess that's kind of true.  You go on performing while I sleep, and when I wake up I have no memory of all you've done.  Sometimes I have a slight memory of the shows you put on while I sleep.  Quite the imagination, you have there.  They are fantastical shows.

If I promise to try to remember, will you let me sleep?  Let's give it a shot.  I will listen and watch while I sleep.  You put on your best show.  And in the morning we'll review.  Do we have a deal?

Mornings Suck!

I'm sorry to be so crass.  I could sugar coat it.  I could say that mornings aren't my favorite time of day.  That they are a struggle.  But it wouldn't change the fact that mornings suck!  And I mean bad!

I hear people talk about the joy of watching the sunrise.  I hear people talk about that blissful time in the house when they are the only ones up, private time to enjoy before they wake everyone else.  I hear people talk about being so grateful for another day.  Welcoming it with excitement and vigor.

I hate these people; they're so irritating.

These are the people who schedule early morning games for my children ON SATURDAYS!  These are the people who decided that my kids should start school at 7:30 a.m. -- even though studies show that children aren't really awake enough to learn productively at that time of day.  And can't you just hear some snotty, bright-eyed morning person saying, "The early bird gets the worm,"  with that big, I've-been-up-since-five grin on their face?

Well, maybe that's true.  Maybe the early bird does get the worm.  But I stay up late and I get cookies.  Which would you rather have?

I can enjoy the quiet time, when I'm the only one awake, at two in the morning.  I can watch whatever I want on hulu without interruption from my sleeping family.  I can be grateful that another day is over and I didn't kill anyone.  I can revel in my internal rebellion against the clock of modern society.

I haven't always been comfortable this way.  I tried to conform.  Especially while living with my father, who has always gotten up at 4:00 a.m. without need of an alarm clock.

But I'm a grown up now.  Or at least, a legal adult.  I get to decide when to go to bed.

If only I could really decide when to get up.  I still have kids who are school age, who still haven't mastered the art of getting up and out the door without me. 

But there will come a day.  There will come a day when I don't use an alarm clock.  When I sleep until my body tells me to get up.  When I finally feel rested.

Okay, I may be delusional, but it gets me through.  I have to keep believing that there's beautiful darkness and quiet at the end of the tunnel.

Until then, mornings will continue to suck.