Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Today is April 20th. Can that possibly be right? What the hell happened to March and the first part of April ?! Where have I been? Did I miss the whole thing? Well, according to my trusty blog post tally system ( or whatever they call that do-hickey on the side of the page that counts entries per month) I have made a whopping 4 entries since the begining of April. Hmmmm.

Yeah, okay, it's been a rough past few weeks. Aside from my life being in a total state of disruption, and turmoil, and occassional panic, I've been unusually sullen and depressed as well. And just lately, say the past week or so, my body has taken on the physical characteristics of my mental state. I have felt physically sluggish, to the point of not even having the energy to walk my dogs on days when the weather is flawless. I've felt aches and pains all over; my kidneys are sore, my legs feel wobbly, my spine feels stiff and fragile, my chest is tight, I have cramps, some days I can't sleep a wink, and some days, I can't seem to get out of bed. Needless to say, as a result, nothing inside my head seems to be working properly. To put it mildly, I am a freakin' mess. Like my friend Kate, I actually considered making an appointment with my doctor today.

As I laid in bed this afternoon, my demented little mind began to turn this idea over and over, examining all my possible options.
I asked myself, "Self, if you found yourself in the doctor's office, or local emergency room right now, how would you describe your symptoms? (Without sounding like a bitchy old whore, of course.) Would I really be able to rattle off the above list of physical complaints - without breaking down and ending up in the psych ward?"
I think the answer would be . . . Probably not. Well, that answer narrowed down my options considerably. I have to fix myself.
So once again, I ask myself, "Self, What kind of treatment would La Loba, or Baba Yaga prescribe for this situation?" ( Just in case you think I really have lost my mind, La Loba and Baba Yaga are names for the wise old hag that lives deep down in the psyche of every woman - from the book, Women Who Run with the Wolves.) Anyway, I thought hard, and looked deep inside myself, and the only answer I could come up with, was one that made me smile a bit. I could almost hear her ancient, croaky old voice inside my head saying,
"Girl, you need to give yourself an enema, get this shit out of your system, and move on !"

And you know what? I think she's right. The past several weeks, I feel like I've been just barely hanging on, afraid to move, think, or even breathe, for fear that my whole world will completely collapse - and that still might happen. But if I don't take care of me, it won't matter anyway - will it? What's the point in surviving the storm, if you end up as a basket case in the mental ward? That doesn't seem like much of a victory, certainly not a fairy tale happily ever after ending. ( Good Lord, I'm already talking to myself and hearing voices of fictional characters in my head.) It's time to do something.

But the truth is, women, and especially moms, are wired to take care of other people - not ourselves. I'm not even sure what it MEANS to take care of my own needs. I'm not even sure what they ARE. I know that I've been failing physically. I haven't been giving a lot of thought to what I put into my body; I've just been relying on my medications to take up the slack. That plan won't work for very long. In fact, that's probably why I am feeling so crappy. But, get ready, here comes my number one excuse, I'm just concerned about taking on a "health and fitness" program with so much of my life in a state of chaos. Then again, maybe I need something else to focus my attention on, other than the things that are going wrong in my life. I really can't do anything about most of those things any way. So, I guess I have to start doing something positive somewhere. That was one of my goals - before things started to fall apart . . . I guess I let myself get distracted - I'm good at that.

So . . . tomorrow, I am going to make a list of things that I CAN do, right now, and start doing them. Maybe, if I can just start, maybe even see some results, I can start thinking about other things that I need to do to take care of me. Wish me luck.

1 howled back:

Anonymous said...

You know I will always wish you luck. But I'm not one too hand out advice since I just now finished half a bag of Chicos. Do you have those lollies/candy over there? They are like choc flavoured gummy bears.

Ahem. Anyway. I fully understand about putting crap into the body and feeling like crap. It's all fun and giggles for a while but after a week or two of it, the body starts to kind of freak out. I get even more weirder than I usually am!

So maybe I can start with you, back on a healthy eating plan. Maybe just more water or something, for starters. :)
I dont' want our bodies to go into shock, haha.