Friend and I have committed to going to the YMCA to exercise every Tuesday and Thursday in the morning. We drive together. This puts good peer pressure on both of us to follow through with these plans. Walking side by side on the elliptical trainers has given us a lot of time to talk-- time that is usually taken up by preventing children from putting an eye out with a sharp stick. And it is eerie how much we have in common. I have these things in common with other folks as well, but if feels different. Or rather, it feels more the same. We both struggle with the routine parts of daily life. About having a routine. Figuring out what that routine might be. Sticking with that. Time. Tracking time on every level. What hour, what day, what month are things happening? Also cleaning the house. Clean the disaster first, or the less-disastrous-but-more-crucial spot? Can't decide? Make green slime out of cornstarch for the kids to play with instead. Wash the cat. Build a fort out of old garden-lattices and Mail. How it accumulates in frightening unopened piles that will eventually collapse under their own weight and form sedimentary rock. Meals. What to make, when to start it. Whether we should make something we know the kids will eat or what we would like them to eat. Then it's too late to think about what to make. Just have noodles. Crap. Self Care. Exercise. Eating well. Getting enough sleep. Here is the beautiful thing. Because we are both needing to work on the same things, we can use our time together to make Reasonable, Sane, Achievable goals for the week. Or even just for the day. Right now I am this stage: "Ohmigosh I have to do a ton of stuff every day if I want to get anywhere. I know. I will throw away or give away one grocery bag full of stuff every day." She is at this stage: "There is so much to do and there will always be so much stuff to do I don't even know how to start." Mind you, the effect is the same. I talk a good game, but I don't actually follow through because the goals I set are not reasonable or attainable. I forget to factor in the time it takes to do things. So I accomplish little or nothing that i set out to do and become disheartened and give up. She doesn't do anything because she has started out disheartened. I am providing the push and she is providing the pull. I push her into taking some action. She pulls me back from trying to do too much. (I still secretly feel like I can get a grocery-bag of stuff out of the house every day and it would not be too hard. There is so much junk. I may do this anyway, at least for a while.) Grateful Crap: pushmi-pullyu partnerships Equatorial Activity: Made use of mood tracker Made use of food tracker (hey, that rhymes) Took meds (150mg venlafaxine, 450mg bupropion, 50mg lamotrigine) Took other stuff (omega-3, magnesium, multi-vitamin)' 30 minutes (SUPER slow-- still on the mend) on elliptical trainer time with friend tea with friend took it easy Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |