It is the middle of June. Summer break started a week and a half ago. I am already mostly ready for school to be back in session.
A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks. I am working on processing all that happened. I need to open a Google doc and start writing some of that down.
I don't even really know how to convey the things I'm feeling right now. Two and a half years ago, I embarked on a journey to lose some extra weight. It was quite a bit extra. In total, I lost 80 pounds.
I cut a lot out of my life. I stopped playing interactive games on my phone (you know, the kind where you virtually do things that you wouldn't normally do, say farming and other of those kinds of things).
I stopped doing those things. I started spending more time in the real world. I actively worked my business. I tried to be more present with my kids.
Over the months, I shed the weight. I got less hung up about what I was eating. Having boundaries with my food made my life so much easier in a lot of ways.
I think that I believed that I would lose the weight, it would stay off, and I would ride off into the sunset.
Over the past six or so months, I've gained back about 20 pounds, give or take. I started to loosen my restrictions about what I put in my body. I started to play games again, though this time, I'm building a city versus farming (which is different in exactly no appreciable way).
I have been feeling very defeated lately. My depression continues to plague me. It is that ever-present itch in the middle of my back, the one I can't quite reach, the one no one else can quite scratch in the right way. It strikes me at odd times and paralyzes me emotionally and even, on occasion, physically.
In addition, I've developed an issue with my IT band. It's making running almost impossible. I need to do more to stretch it out and try to ice it, but meanwhile, one of my cheaper forms of therapy has gone out the window.
Brian's unemployment continues on. That's an entirely declarative statement, no commentary on his effort. He has done absolutely everything in his power to make sure he's working. He's been on several promising interviews, even second interviews. No offers, though.
He has been a trooper, but it's plunged us all into an unregulated chaos. There isn't any regularity to our days. Even when he was working at home, I knew what to expect. I knew when to be gone and when to be at home. Now, time has become an amorphous blob, undefined and messy, kind of a child's abstract scribble.
About a month ago, I made a stand. I decided my weight was going to stop going up. I was going to buckle back down, make a serious go of things again. I pared down the time I was spending building my city.
Here's the thing, though. Whatever magic or voodoo or whatever that defined my previous period of success (success measured here by weight loss) has evaporated. Try as I might, all I can do is gain and lose the same five pounds.
So I added in more workouts. I intensified them. I started using weights. The problem is that I continue to lack regularity. This has something to do with having four kids, an unemployed husband, a cluttered home, a dog-walking business that is regular but irregular, depression, crushing anxiety...the list goes on.
All of that has contributed to a lack of security about myself. I don't want to post pictures of myself on social media. I'm fairly certain that everyone would see one picture of me say, "oh, she gained weight again, what a failure. That stuff she was talking about is obviously all hokum."
I share about my depression, but then I don't want to overshare. Again, I'm afraid people will think I'm a failure. I'm worried that they think I'm morose, Debbie Downer personified.
In short, I have started to pull into myself, a kind of shrinking turtle. I don't like going out because it involves small talk. As it turns out, while I excel at small talk, I also hate it. It's exhausting. The most relaxing time I've had in the past few months has been with a friend, at her house, watching Schitt's Creek and being almost 100% silent. (Well, aside from laughing our asses off--the show is legitimately the funniest I've ever seen.)
But by not going out and hanging with people, I end up feeling so lonely. I don't want to pick up the phone when people call. They text and days go by before I can muster the energy to answer them.
It feels like I'm trying to walk up a down escalator. I don't feel like I can gain any traction with anything lately. At the beginning of the year, I started a reading plan to read the Bible in a year. I am now 104 days behind.
I missed more days of Bible study this year than I could count. I am not showing up in public and lately, I'm not showing up for myself. I'm not writing, even though it's the thing I know is one of the best therapies for me. I'm not running and I'm not working on helping my knee get better. I'm not working my business. I'm not posting about my life (not in a share-every-minute kind of way, but even in a I'm-so-grateful-to-be-alive kind of way).
I hate to keep ending up in this place. I hate to fail, it makes me crazy. I hate to isolate, but the emotional energy it takes to be among other humans is exhausting. I don't know why that is right now. I'm sure it's because I've been in some form of survival mode for a long, long time.
I am hoping that writing tonight will help me sleep well, regroup, and try again tomorrow.
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