Progress Not Perfection

#tiredmommy @henrycavill @mingna_wen @ginajcarano

So I tagged people...EEEKKKKK. If I am not suppose to do that...Oh God I am sorry.

Progress Not Perfection

Progress not perfection is a statement I have been thinking about a lot lately. Apparently you can have OCD with post-partum depression and anxiety. It’s an awesome addition to something that is already a massive struggle for me. (The fact I am talking about this is embarrassing, but I figure if I talk about it, it might clear up some of the snow in my head.) The OCD is driving the need for perfection. When I don’t achieve it, it just makes the depression and anxiety worse. In some cases the struggle for perfection is like trying to climb up an ever growing and ever changing mound of soft sand. You sink in and climb and climb and you’re never able to get anywhere. Sometimes I can’t see the top and sometimes I can, but I never seem to be able to reach it. It’s mentally exhausting, and surprisingly physically exhausting.

**speaking of OCD, as I was writing this I transferred to the triage desk. I had to straighten and organize it before I felt comfortable working** {as I am typing, I am keeping one eye on my husband as he organizes the toys to make sure he does it the right way…the way I have set out in my brain}

               In case you are wondering, yes, I also see a therapist. I haven’t seen her in a while because I keep forgetting about my appointments (BRAIN FOG) and I have not had time to see her because I keep having to reschedule the appointments I miss with other people and I freaking out about asking my husband to miss work to watch the kids so I can go do my stuff. The point here is, I think she would say I need to re-evaluate my priorities and what is important to me. I need to accept chaos will now always be apart of my life because I have kids, so having a mess is to be expected. I need to look at where I came from and where I am now and see the progress and not focus on the fact I do not have perfection. Like in Big Bang Theory *spoiler alert*, when Amy points out to Sheldon, it’s the imperfections that can make something perfect. This triggers Sheldon to think of super asymmetry with Amy and they both win the Nobel Prize. Of course I don’t expect to ever win a Nobel. It’s not even on my radar of desires. An Oscar, for some reason, still is. But for some reason my brain can’t wrap around this. It’s like closure. What the hell is closure? How the hell do you “let go” of things? I can sing the Frozen song all day long, but that doesn’t mean I get it. Things certainly fade with time, but do you ever truly “let go”?

               I am sure some of you, or maybe none of you are wondering what this all has to do with my running. Well, I didn’t get a bib for the Fairy Tale Challenge. Let me tell you what happened.

               On registration day I went for a run in my Dad’s neighborhood. We were visiting Colorado and the plan for that day was to take the kids to the zoo. After my run I checked the website to see if registration was open. I didn’t check to see if there a was a time for opening or if I did, I don’t remember (BRAIN FOG). If I did I got distracted getting everything ready for the zoo. But it was honestly something I didn’t think about. When I registered for the half marathon in 2019 I registered a day or two after all the registrations opened and there was no rush to get bibs and I don’t think anything “sold out” for weeks after opening. I didn’t think it would be like a Comic Con situation where you have to lightening quick the nano second the tickets open with your mouse clicking, then pray to the Good Lord, once you’re in the “waiting room” you get selected quick. Then pray again you don’t have any technology glitches that delay you completing all the required fields that keep you from clicking “pay now” before everything is sold out. San Diego Comic Con is an intense blood thirsty competition, like the Hunger Games, nobody really knows how people get tickets if they aren’t connected. Anyway, I did not think that registering for the Fairy Tale Challenge, which takes place at the end of February, in the middle of the school year, would be a challenge to the death. By the time I had second to register and remind those running with me to do so as well, the 5k, the 10k, and the Fairy Tale Challenge were all sold out! All that was left was the half marathon and the virtual races.

               That’s not entirely true. So I went to register for the Fairy Tale Challenge. The 5k was sold out and I can’t remember if the 10k was or not. Anyway, I was thrown into a “waiting room” for almost 20 minutes. Then all the fields I was supposed to fill out weren’t working. Like I couldn’t select a shirt size! I couldn’t pay without a shirt size! To save time I registered myself and my husband. Then, the system wouldn’t take my debt card for some reason. So I used my credit card. By the time I FINALLY got to where I could click “pay”, it sold out! My credit card and debt card were both charged (later refunded) and I was sent a registration email that linked to nowhere. I was devastated. I am still devastated. Some how my husband, my best friend, and myself managed to snag half marathon bibs, but that didn’t keep me from crying. Dream, goal, bucket list item…shattered, smashed, and torn apart.

               This is how it was all suppose to go: I register for the Fairy Tale Challenge, my friends join me for some of the races, I cry crossing the finish line feeling exhausted but accomplished, then we all go celebrate my 40^th birthday at Epcot eating and drinking around the world. What ended up happening was: none of my friends (except two) really liked the idea of running a race (really exercise in general), no matter how I sold it. Flying to Florida for a girls weekend at Disney World is expensive and most everyone has small children, some of whom will be in school. So I got two ladies who said they would go run with me. So I asked family to join. I got a taker from my dad and my brother said he would do one of the virtual races. Of course my husband wanted to run too, so now the kids are coming. Since my husband and dad are coming my step-mom is coming to watch the kids while we race and my best friend’s husband is coming because my husband is coming (and frankly that man is going to need a vacation).

               I should know by now, in my life, when I plan something I would really like, God, most of the time, laughs hysterically at me. So no ladies weekend and girls run, no Fairy Tale Challenge, not even a 10k for dad. I did talk to Disney technical support, but all I got was a big “oh well, we’re sorry” and the only real way of knowing if anything re-opens is Twitter (I am too old for Twitter) or checking other social media several times a day for re-posts.

               In the grand scheme of things this is just a minor thing. I still get to run the half marathon with my husband and my best friend. My parents, my children, and my best friend’s husband will be there at the finish line to hug us and cheer for us. I will still get to eat and drink around the world at Epcot for my 40^th birthday with people I love. And maybe, just maybe, runDisney will open up slots and will all get into the Fairy Tale Challenge and my dad will get into the 10k.

               What does all this have to do with the thought of “progress not perfection”? Perfection would have been the perfectly planned ladies’ weekend. Challenge and all. I would be a lean mean running machine making it five miles without waling by now. I would be wearing all kinds of Disney themed running gear, writing challenges in my blog to Henry Cavill, Ming Na Wen, and Gina Carano (who I was sad to hear did NOT have Cold Smoke while she was in Montana) and secure in my knowledge I would blast through the 5k, 10k, and hopefully the half marathon. By that time the massive flab of fat I carry in my front (let me tell you, it honestly weighs me down and doesn’t feel like it’s part of my body. It’s absolutely disgusting. I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror), would be melted away, and I can come home from Disney feeling fabulous and accomplished and ready to do a fabulous photo shoot with my photographer and write this beautiful blog about being 40 and the lessons I learned from my 30’s and what I am looking forward too.

               Instead for the last two weeks, well basically since we got home from Colorado, I have allowed my disappointment to fuel my depression and anxiety and I have neglected my training and let life get in the way or be an excuse. So I saw my doctor and we are working on it. Progress. I am back running. I can still make it at least two miles without walking. Progress (at least from the last time I ran a half marathon). Getting back on track. I guess that’s progress. Not letting a minor setback defeat me. Personal progress.

               Things that still need work: my belly, I could use an overall tone up, if anyone wants to volunteer to help let me know. We will set-up times. My OCD, hopefully this medication change up my doctor is recommending will help with that, and the depression and anxiety. My eating habits, I was tracking in MyFitnessPal, but I get so busy and the kids and husband are great excuses for eating poorly and shouldn’t be.

               Progress not perfection, even if I have to do baby steps and have a babysitter. I don’t know who would do that, I am taking volunteers. Progress not perfection.

And holy crap I tagged people...this is not my most elegant piece of work, nor the most inspiring... and I cannot find the photo of my son running with me, which I had planned on inserting. 

What is a Calling?

 

What is a Calling?

               I was talking to my BFF (yes I have one, I call her that, she has many friends, I have few, let me tell you about her for a brief moment). Ok let me rewind. I met my BFF at a time in my life that part of me wishes I could forget, or at least parts of it. We met working in the Nursing School office of the college we both went to nursing school. She was in the accelerated course a year ahead of me, the following year I started the regular course and she encouraged and coached me throughout the whole experience. But more than that she encouraged and supported me through one of the most turbulent and transforming periods of my life. <Please refer to previous blog posts to get some details> So the point is I love this woman and have said on many occasions, if I were to go for a lady (I like the men), but if I WERE to go for a lady, it would be her. We have different views on a lot of things, but she gets me. And I get her and I love her boys to pieces because, well, if you saw them, you’d love them to. Ok so, back on track. I was talking to my BFF about nursing. I was working on a project for my graduate certificate (more on that later), and she said something that made me think. She sees nursing as her calling. Now she’s had some of the craziest, heart pounding, kick ass experiences as a nurse…whereas I…well…there was once this meme posted on Facebook, I don’t remember the general gist of it, but it was two morbidly obese humans in the drive through at Macdonalds on their freaking scooters. That is my job. Dealing primarily with people who just plain do not care and are rude and abusive about it. I will say OCCASIONALLY I get a good one that I just love, but mostly it’s like talking to a brick wall. Actually I think the brick wall will bend before most of the patients I see will.

               Her statement got me to thinking. Is nursing my calling? The simple answer is: no. Nursing is not my “calling”. The way I look at a calling is something you are destined to do. A job, a career, a task that you were born for. Honestly after almost forty years on this earth I have no idea what I am “destined” for. The simple statement is: I am a nurse. Whether my co-workers agree with me or not, I am good at my job (perfect, no, knowledgeable, adaptable, hardworking, yes). This isn’t ego talking. I am not one of those people that walk around thinking I am shit hot. I have met those people, I am not those people. Is there room for improvement? Of course! I am nurse because a) it is a steady job, b) it’s something I do well, and c) I see it as my duty to society. I absolutely love that the generation behind mine (I swear to sweet Jesus if you call me a millennial, I will kick you were it counts), that has gone to college and gone on into semi adulthood following their dreams, following where the wind takes them, a hundred thousand dollar master’s degree in gender studies through interpretive dance (WTF are you going to do with that?!). The best example I have is my former sister-in-law. She was BRILLANT in math. An absolute rock star. Someone that could have inspired young girls for generations to pursue mathematics and become leaders in the field. She could have become a leader in the field. But what did she do? Chose to pursue a career that satisfied her needs instead of contributing to society as a whole. I love to write. I love photography. I would love nothing more than to sit at home and write all day or read the great works of literature. I would love to be back in the dark room were I found peace. Where if found some semblance of self. But I chose to do what would contribute the greatest good to society instead of what would be the biggest burden. So nursing is not my calling. It is my duty. Ps...I took that photo and the one that is the background for this blog.

Learning to give yourself grace...

 I am not one of those people that takes getting sick all that well. Growing up, my father’s response whenever I got sick was: take a knee, drink some water, you’ll live. As a nurse, I am exposed to all kinds of germs, but with all the patients I have seen, I have never been so sick so often than I have with children. My personal policy about calling off from work: if I am still standing upright after a shower without a fever, boogers or no, I am going to work. These days that seems to make my co-workers cringe. Sorry guys, we are super short and I have ZERO sick leave to spare for myself. In the last month I have had to enforce that policy, aside from testing positive and being asymptomatic. My daughter ( I believe it was her) gave me the most godawful cold/ sinus infection I have had since…last year when her brother gave me a germ so bad I got my first ear infection ever and lost my voice for two weeks. Being so sick I was unable to run or even do yoga for almost three weeks! I felt…well, a myriad of things: fat, disgusting, exhausted, bloated, boogery, headachey…The point is, I would have done more harm than good to my body I had a pushed myself and did more than just making it through a stretch at work and keeping up with kids and chores on my day off. Part of my brain knows this, my body knows this in part as well, however, that didn’t stop the evil part of my brain from making me feel godawful about sitting around on my duff blowing my nose all day.

As a nurse I know that rest does more for your body sometimes than any medicine out there, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking myself lazy and fat. This is were learning to give myself grace comes in. I have been in therapy for years. Therapy is an ongoing process for a lot of people. Some people only need a few sessions to get them past a hard time, some people go for a while and stop and then go back, and others find it a never ending process that helps them grow. I am part of the never ending process group. Its not that I have a serious mental health problem, I mean I have some post partum right now, but therapy helps me put things in perspective that my brain has a hard time processing. It gives me skills and ways of coping or handling situations that I would not have thought of on my own. One of those things is learning to give myself grace.

What I mean by this is: learning to give myself a break. I am constantly pushing myself to be a better nurse, a better wife, a better mom, a better sister, a better friend…and when I feel like I fail at these tasks, which I do, I beat myself up for days. Sometimes when I am super anxious I relive the mistakes in my head and re-beat myself up. I have to learn to accept I am human and I will make mistakes. There will be days I fail as a mother or a nurse. During this year long journey to the Fairy Tale Challenge there will be days where I fail at my run, where I will go through stretch where I just don’t have the time or the energy to even do a simple 10 minute yoga lesson, but as long as I stay focused on my goal and make a genuine effort, I can count it as a win. I don’t have to be perfect, I just have to finish, even if I crawl across that line. (But I am going to seriously try and run most if not all of it, don’t worry y’all this goal is happening.)

The picture I am attaching to this post is a picture I took of myself after a particularly windy and defeating run. My body just wasn’t into it. The wind was in my face and up my nose the whole time, it was frustrating and I cried. But two days later I ran the first 5K I have run since my mid-20’s. Give myself grace. I can do this.

That being said I have seriously been the slacker lately, I am not being hard on myself this time, I just have been lazy, plus I have had to work night shift last night and tonight...work messes everything up. Not to mention the wind here has been HORRIBLE. I hate running on the treadmill. It hurts. Any advice on how to make running on the treadmill easier, I am open to suggestion. 

Look at me making excuses. I can do this. I really can. Alright anxious rant over. I will layer up and run tomorrow. Its happening. Even if I make it only a mile.

You know your anxiety is bad when...

 

I have been legitimately ill for the last few days. Body aches, chills, horrible cough, fatigue, copious amounts of mucus coming from my nose, I look like I have two black eyes and Rudolph the red nosed reindeer rolled into one. I can only breath out of one nostril at a time. Now a normal person would take medication, drink hot tea, soak in a warm tub, use their essential oils, and humidifier, really do what needs to be done to feel better and recover. But not me. One) I can’t take anything other than plain Tylenol or ibuprofen because I am breast feeding, two) I am breast feeding so any chance of sleeping a whole day through is not possible, three) I have small children who have boogers, who incidentally gave me the boogers, four) while I have a husband that can take care of things…ish…while I am sick I can’t rest if my children are upset or screaming for whatever reason, such as he didn’t want the fresh blueberries for the love of God he wanted the frozen ones (this requires full meltdown with face firmly planted on the dirty floor…because I am too sick to clean the freaking floors), and five and final) I am crazy. See when you lay your head down to rest your brain shuts off, mine decides to go through the never ending list of chores, how I am falling hopelessly behind in my training and letting my friends and family down by not at least trying to exercise (even yoga hurts my face right now and like I said, one nostril), how I am horrifyingly overweight and will never catch up, how much I dread going to work in the morning because I know for certain (although I don’t have any proof) there is favoritism going on and I have to go work in an area I can’t stand, but I have to get both kids ready for daycare tomorrow so I better get up even though I know I am going to hit the snooze button at least twice if not three times, I am going to scramble all morning and be thinking of the pile of homework I have to do and OH YEAH…I need to workout, but my face might explode from pressure and boogers.

<<insert panting noise here>>  <<<imagine I said all that like Delores explaining Mirabel finding Bruno’s vision at dinner>>> #disneymom

So this is part of postpartum anxiety. This is why I run and what happens when I can’t do it regularly. Even though, as a nurse, I know I need to give myself time to heal and recover, parts of my brain don’t allow me, to give myself that grace, that rest, that peace, I need to feel better. I am sorry to my family, that I can’t join in our family healthy challenge right now, I am trying. I am sorry to my Spartan team for not training, I am trying. I am sorry to myself for not allowing myself the grace to recover.

 

So usually I would write something like this out in a journal before committing it to a public forum, but I felt like I just needed to get this out there before I got too tired or gave up on the idea completely. I started this blog in nursing school as a way to keep family and friends collectively informed about what was going on in school so I didn’t have to repeat myself a million times. Then it turned to a way for me to process my divorce through short story writing and book reviews. I don’t think I will give up on either one of those on here, but they might be few and far between. I guess I would say I am restarting my blog as a way to deal with my postpartum anxiety and depression.

For those not in the know I had my second child four months ago. She’s beautiful. It was a struggle pregnancy in many ways and now I am dealing with the hormonal aftermath in the best way I know how: therapy, exercise, diet, and medication. Not that I am good at anyone of those things. Although I do take my medication like I am supposed to and keep my therapy appointments. The exercise and diet are where I do need the help. I have a plan, I just need help.

Again another thing some may not know, in few days I will be entering my last year in my 30’s. I am not struggling with that, my 30’s have been great. I am ready to move on to the next decade. I certainly don’t feel my age mentally, although I have horrible mommy brain. I don’t feel like I need to complete anything before 40, except one thing: The Fairy Tale Challenge.

Let me explain. I started running half marathons in my 20’s. By “running half marathons” I mean I forced myself in an effort to maintain a size 6 for someone who didn’t love me for who I was, to do a cardiovascular workout I hated. I also make it sound like I have ran dozens of half marathons, when in fact in my 20’s I ran three. I agreed to my first one because a friend talked me into it. My motivation through it was my brother’s first deployment. If he could survive desert heat in full combat gear, I could freaking run 13.1 miles. And I did. I don’t know what kept me going for the other two, but I stopped trying once I started nursing school.

After graduation I tried several times to pick up the habit of running several times, even though I hate it. Honestly it is the only thing that helps me lose weight, and more recently I have found it is a really big factor in keeping the postpartum in check. Over three years ago I “bit the bullet” and decided to sign up for an item on my bucket list: the Disney Princess Half Marathon. The race takes place in Disneyworld, running through Magic Kingdom and parts of Epcot. It always looked like so much fun. At the time I signed up I was going through fertility treatments and I was, what I consider for myself, way over weight.

I tried hard to train for that race. Every single step was a struggle. I could never find a rhythm. I could never get past my wall. I could not get out there regularly. It was just a frustrating struggle. I felt alone. I felt like a failure. I physically hurt and I was mentally exhausted. I still did it though. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done! The costumes, the characters, fireworks, music, running through Sleeping Beauty’s castle! It was an experience I will never forget. But it wasn’t enough for me. I was disappointed in myself. So, I set a goal: before I turned 40, I would run the Fairy Tale Challenge, even if I had to walk the whole way.

I am almost a year away from 40. I have had two children since running the Princess Half. My body has changed, my brain has changed (as evidenced by my inability to finish a sentence most days), and my motivations have changed. It is taking a lot for me to say I am doing this for myself because I rarely do things purely for myself (I’ll explain later). I want to feel a sense of accomplishment. I want my children to be proud of me, even though they will be three years old and 16 months old. I don’t want to be that person that sits there at the end of my life and wishes I could go back and do something. I want to do this because I know I can. It would be nice to have some help though.