As I sit here, basically alone at the moment, I struggle with so many things. I think about how I used to feel young and that I had all kinds of time to work things out. It’s not that I fear or feel badly about getting old…I actually embrace and welcome it. It is more that I lament how I have squandered my youth, as I’m sure so many others have. So many people say how it is never too late to start something new or to make amends, and I have done my fair share of starting things over again and again.
A few years back, I lost a lot of weight. I was physically feeling so good. I could run and run and do lots of sit-ups and pushups. My clothes were shrinking. But I had too much calcium in my blood. That calcium was swirling around in my brain, depositing in places that affected my better judgement and caused anxiety and depression. I ended up having surgery, which took care of the calcium situation, but there was lasting damage done. I now have permanent nerve damage. Even keys in my pocket up against my leg causes pain. I have occasional random panic attacks where I feel like I might die. I cover it up so that no one knows I feel that way because no one would understand why I would think that. I don’t even understand it. When people don’t understand what you are feeling or thinking, they can’t be supportive. I know this from being on both sides of the equation.
I also still experience bouts of depression. The isolation we must engage in due to the pandemic just exasperates it. I feel despair, for no good reason. I feel the walls closing in on me and the more people around me continue to live in fear of a virus and empower an instrument of the devil, the angrier and more helpless I feel. As I sit here on my terminal leave, the days bleed together. I miss opportunities to do things that I wouldn’t have had time to do if I was working all day. I have felt like I have been in some form of “suspended animation”. I know, poor, pitiful me. I’m very certain millions of people are in worse shape than I am. I don’t pretend to be a martyr. All I wish to do is explain how a person can have a fantastic support system and choose not to fully invest in utilizing it because of knowing that the advice will be “it is all in your head”, “cheer up”, “suck it up and deal with it”, “don’t be weak and give in to the mind games of the devil”, “just think positive thoughts and stop with the worry”, etc., etc. I know it is because people don’t know what to say and don’t understand how a person can feel and think in such ways. It isn’t because they don’t care or don’t want to be supportive.
Another thing about losing so much weight: it made me feel pretty awesome. Even with the sciatica and aches and pains of neuropathy, my self confidence was strengthened. Basically, I knew I looked good. But people, pride begins before the fall. And I fell from a height that broke me. And now, I am terrified to lose weight because I don’t want to get so full of myself that I leave another path of destruction in my wake because I become so self-absorbed again.
I am going to be 47 years old next month. I am no spring chicken, but I am not olderly… ”middle-aged” is probably where I actually am now! I don’t want to waste any more time deciding what I should do or lamenting what I have done in the past. I know I don’t have time for that. I have just under two months left of my terminal leave, and I will be starting a new job as a civilian in October. I am truly blessed and have so much to look forward to. I can’t forget that. The kids are getting ready to get back to school and my husband is a school teacher, so I will soon be alone at home with the dogs for a few weeks before I begin my new job. For these remaining weeks off, I am going to stop having any expectations. I will only continue to disappoint myself. It doesn’t mean that I will not have a plan or goals. There will simply not be boxes that I will check. Do any of you live like this? Do any of you have plans and goals but no checklists or timelines? Does it work? All I know is that the more days I continue to push my goals to the next day because I didn’t accomplish them, the worse and less capable I feel. Is it time to boycott the goal list? The time to experiment with this notion is now.