Jittery

I don't drink a lot of caffeine.  But you know how when you drink too much of it and you feel all jittery inside?

That's how I feel pretty much all of the time.

I think that I just feel unsettled about the upcoming surgery.  And although you are probably tired of hearing about it, I'm going to keep on writing about it.

I get that the chances of me coming out of it alive are very high.  I get that the chance of me coming out of it with all of my lady bits are high.  I get that it does no good to worry about it.

But I can't help it.

I think it's that I just feel that I've had a lot of really crappy stuff happen to me in my life. I was molested as a kid, hit by an ex-boyfriend in high school, cheated on, and have had other health concerns that have been significant.  I've kept going in the midst of a lot of adversity.  I think I kept plugging along - at first feeling like I didn't deserve good things, and then feeling like maybe some day my luck would turn around.

I've lived most of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.  While things were sucky, I was aware that they could always be worse.

But now my life is finally starting to resemble something that's fantastic.  I'm trusting people in ways I never really did before.  I'm loving freely and fully (which was SO hard at first).  I'm happy with me and my body.  I'm happy-ish with my relationship with food.

And I'm sharing my life with someone.  It's something I always thought was for other people...but not for someone like me.  It's the kind of love that is such a comfort.

So now that I have this life that I have always wanted, I'm aware at how much this situation could suck.  I guess I'm aware at how blessed my life actually IS.  My life isn't perfect by any means, but I no longer live in fear of the other shoe dropping.

I'm actually content.

I KNOW that I shouldn't worry about the surgery.  It's out of my hands...and I can't do anything to change anything.  But I am and I do.  Well, I'm not sure that WORRY is the right word...I'm anxious and jittery though.  And doesn't that stem from worry?

I'd like to say that my eating has been perfect.  It hasn't.

But I haven't gained any weight in the last few weeks either...and with cutting back drastically on my exercise regime, that's at least something that I don't need to worry about.

I'm aware that I want to keep eating to veg out, zone out, or decompress somehow.  The only possible thing that I can think of to bring me comfort is to take a yoga class in the next week - something that will help me focus on my breath and my position and nothing else.  It'll be a new way to get a break from my head and won't be so strenuous as to anger the uterine fibroid.

Any other suggestions?

Busy bee

I can't believe all of the stuff that I've done this past week.

Since you missed it, here's a recap:

• Applied for (what feels like) 75,000 jobs
• Received (what feels like) 75,001 rejection letters from various potential employers
• Fought with a co-worker such that he is flying in (he lives out of state) to have a mediated discussion tomorrow morning
• Sold my beautiful cherry wood sleigh bed because it wasn't as functional as one I bought at IKEA
• Realized the headboard that I bought at IKEA does not fit my bedroom
• Cried
• Figured out a different way to make a headboard work in the master bedroom
• Called my furnace guy two more times to come by and fix the ever breaking furnace in my house. This time, it should be fixed for good. (knock on wood)
• Called an electrician to come out to my house and fix a light fixture in the basement that hasn't worked since I bought the house
• Realized I must have a LOT of spiders in the basement because HOLY COW there are tons of spiderwebs!
• Cried again
• Rented a shop vac to get rid of all evidence of spider factory down in the basement
• Rented a truck because the big stuff won't fit in my MINI
• Made (what feels like) eleventy hundred trips to the storage unit to store literally half of my stuff so that my house looks more spacious.
• Cut my finger on something
• Caught the previously mentioned cut finger on EVERYTHING
• Used paint thinner to take the "frosted window look" faux finish off all of my windows
• Touched up all of the walls in my house
• Touched up all of the trim on the exterior of my house
• Washed my huge dog
• Washed the huge dog's bed
• Realized this morning that my dog either has yet another bladder infection *or* she's incontinent because she peed on said clean bed. FANTASTIC.
• Washed the huge dog's bed (in progress)
• Took said dog to the vet's office
• Signed paperwork to put the house up for sale - tomorrow it will officially be listed!
• Got all of the huge dog's stuff together so that it will be an easy transition to drop off and pick up the dog every day as long as the house is on the market. My place is 750 square feet. My dog is a 180 pound Great Dane. I don't think she'll help sell the house...
• Found out that my boyfriend's grandpa will be having heart surgery on Friday. He's in his late 80s and is very frail.
• Worried about whether having the dog over at my boyfriend's is a good idea - especially with all that he has going on.
• Realized that I don't have many other options that are not really costly for the dog.
• Cried again.

I know that after tomorrow morning I can officially breathe a bit easier. The co-worker who repeatedly does not show me respect will be here and we'll be able to hopefuly meet in the middle about some key things that make my job yucky. I know that my house will be as ready as it ever will be to be sold. And I know that having her with a day of antibiotics to clear up the UTI (which I hope that's all it is) will allow her to be potty trained during the day tomorrow.

I'm nervous about what is to come, but I feel like good things can and will happen. I need to belive that.

I know that I haven't done a great job with managing my stress levels. I weigh more than what I did two weeks ago and the idea of getting the poundage off seems next to impossible right now. I'm eating things out of convenience and (if I'm to be 100% honest) out of comfort.

I have my first 7K this weekend and have run 0.0 miles this week. ZERO! I'm sad about that, but events this whole week have kept me from being able to run at lunch - and then on the way home I've had meetings with the furnace guy, electrician, or realtor. By the time those appointments are completed, it's 7-8 at night and I still had a whole bunch more work to do on my house. Assuming my dog has a bladder infection, my lunch will be spent going home and letting her out to potty so that she won't have to hold "it" any longer than 4 hours.

If I play my cards right, tomorrow evening I can run - even if it's at the gym. I know that that will help me feel more with it. I know that it will help me take care of myself. And I know that it will help prep me for the run this weekend. I really, really, really want to run the whole thing.

I miss blogging. I miss running. I miss feeling peace. These things run together for me.

Hopefully, starting tomorrow, I can at least get into a schedule - if only for a little bit.

My brain is full

My brain is full.

That's the only way that I can even think to explain my life at the moment. I have so many things to think about and to process that I can't even begin to write about all of them - the task seems too daunting.

So I'll sum up.

1) The work that I'm doing with my therapist is good. Really good. But OH BOY is it hard.

2) Stuff with Joe is going really well. We're starting to spend more nights together throughout the week and I'm so happy that our lives seem to be meshing naturally. Part of me is a little scared though - I mean, what if this actually does work out? Fear of success creeps up on me apparently.

3) I met with an old college friend last night for dinner. In our conversations, she told me that I made this huge difference in her life and I didn't know what to say. Part of me feels like the person that I was back then is not so much of who I am now. I know that changing throughout the course of your life is natural, but I also feel like sometimes I wonder if I've changed in the best way possible.

4) My workplace was visited again by our VP and the HR manager on Tuesday. A few of us were selected to work out of a sister company's extra cubicles. The way they handled the entire situation completely sucks and it just left me feeling sad. Many great people were laid off and I guess I'm having a serious case of "survivor's guilt."

5) My eating has been pretty horrendous the last few days. Like I've eaten out each night as well as some lunches. I need to go to the store to get "good" things to eat for breakfast, but I've been so busy each night until almost midnight that I haven't stopped by the store. I've eaten like crap and I feel like crap. Part of me wants to say that I should make time to go to get good stuff at the store, but then I remember that in a little over a week I'll be gone for another week of training - and I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff that will just go bad.

6) I'm thinking about changing out my bedroom furniture. LONG story short, it's too big and too dark for my bedroom so it makes my bedroom feel REALLY tiny. I feel like if my bedroom is in order, my life feels more in order...so I'm excited about buying some pieces from IKEA when I go to Houston in a few weeks. That means that I need to get my butt in gear now to sell my bedroom furniture on craigslist. That takes time. And wow, do I feel like I don't have much of it.

7) I have a busy weekend coming up and as excited as I am about some pieces, I really just feel like lounging around. I know that I'll have the opportunity to do that tomorrow night, but UGH I want to do that today.

SO basically, I could've had a separate post for each one of the items above. I feel better when I at least get out some of my thoughts on paper/screen so that they're not so jumbled in my head. Running also helps - and I've done that a few times this week already. I need to remember that in times of stress, running or some sort of exercise is more helpful than I remember at the moment. Even though I have a therapy session today after work, I am going to run or do some form of exercise tonight.

What about you - what do you do to be kind to yourself and help yourself relax in stressed times?