Change and Commitment

As I was going through my morning routines I was thinking about change, or the lack of it, and how I felt about it.

Yesterday I had my final appointment with my therapist, who is retiring. I realized I've been seeing her since 2003, which is the longest I've ever stayed with one therapist. That's saying something, since I've been going to someone off and on since the mid 80s! Some of that has to do with the fact that since I graduated high school (20 years ago today, gulp!) I have made major moves four times, and within those four basic locations, I've lived in 12 different domiciles!

I then realized that other than my time with Dr. Karen and being a mother (for 10 years now), most of my adult "commitments," be they residences, jobs or relationships, have never been longer than 5 years... until now. In July I will have been in my current job five years, and in August I will have known my husband for 5 years. (I am excluding friendships in this list -- I must say the majority of my friends have been very long-term -- some since elementary school!)

I've discovered a strange paradox about myself in this train of thought. As much as I crave control and routine, I've consistently thrown myself into chaos by changing jobs and or locations. In most of the job situations I've seen the "writing on the wall" that I need to get out, move on, or go bonkers. Actually, my one relationship was that way, too. Part of me worries that I ran away from these situations rather than stick it out, but I'm pretty sure that I tried my best and realized when there was nothing more I could do to make it better. And I'm pretty confident that if I had remained in those situations that I would be a miserable soul.

As I ponder the longevity of my current job and relationship, I would like to think that I've managed to learn from past mistakes and was able to search out positive environments. No job or relationship is perfect, but my basic criteria are being met. In my job, I have some independence to work at my own pace, and I've got the flexibility to be able to juggle my job as mother, too. I truly feel appreciated and I believe I can make a difference in people's lives.

In my relationship I am with a person who is not afraid to be affectionate and share his feelings, and he's willing to discuss things and diffuse them before they blow up into big problems. These are so important to me, because it's something I never had before.

But as I move into the long term with many situations in my life, I do have some apprehensions. As much as I like my current stability, I do have these fleeting moments of restlessness. The positive side of that is being a person who is always looking for something new to learn and grow as a person. But I notice this trend I have of not finishing a lot of things in my life: I often start a project or hobby then let it drop. It happens with my efforts at tackling my eating issues, too. Once in a while I may come back to it for a little while, but I don't seem to have the sticktoitiveness to complete a lot of things. Is it fear of commitment, adult ADD? Or maybe something else I haven't even grasped yet. I don't know.

I am starting with a new therapist, probably next month. Maybe I can tackle these issues with her.

AWOL again!

I have been absent again from the blog, and I give my apologies. Part of the reason was the time of year: as a church secretary, Holy Week and Easter are one of the busiest times of the year for me, and there were a couple weeks when I hardly had time to think straight, let alone blog. It's finally starting to slow down now that I've mailed my monthly newsletter (I'm the editor, type in all the copy, design all the pages, fold and label them, plus handle all the bulk mailing duties!) I can take a little breather. In fact, summer is really slow for me at work, and I have to admit I'm looking forward to the lighter schedule.

We also had some upheavals in my home routine. At the beginning of April, after debating over it for the past year, we made the decision to move my daughter from one gymnastics team which was 10 miles away, to another gym that is 40 miles away! In addition, we're bumping up from three days a week, at three hours a pop, to four days a week, with the Saturday class clocking in at four hours! It's meant a lot more running for me, although once we get settled in, I think some of the other parents and I will set up some turns at carpooling. It's already obvious it was the right decision to make; I know my daughter has learned more in the last three weeks than she learned in the last three months at her old gym. Her form is better, and she's definitely increasing her strength.

To add to all this "busyness," I've been dealing with some issues with a medication I take. I take a generic form of Ortho Tri-Cyclen, and last month my pharmacy switched the generics on me. Well, the last couple weeks have been rough. The PMS was rough with major moodiness. Then, when I was supposed to have my "visitor," it was nowhere to be found. And I'm usually as regular as clockwork. I was freaking out and even got a pregnancy test, which did turn out negative. A few days after that, a week after it was supposed to come, it arrived with a fury, with cramps from hell and moodiness that made me feel like a crazy woman. I was near tears three times that day!

It was weird that this "scare" happened right now, because I've been surrounded by a lot of babies recently, and I have to admit I've caught a little baby fever. Even my husband caught a bit of it from me. So we both were really doing some heavy thinking and talking during those days when I wasn't sure. Although in the midst of my hormonal breakdown I ranted to him, "If I had a baby right now on top of all this I'd jump in front of a truck!" So I don't know what will happen now.

To make matters worse, my daughter and I caught some kind of stomach bug, so while I stayed at home with her yesterday and tried to work from home, I was also making frequent and urgent trips to the bathroom.

Needless to say, add this all together, and I haven't been doing that great the last few weeks with my eating and exercising. But it hasn't been a total backslide. I will backtrack a little bit here and say that as of March 27 I had lost almost 20 pounds since January, and on April 8 I got weighed at a different doctor's appointment and was still at that weight. I can't even guess what it is right now, though, after these last two weeks of insanity. I didn't want to weigh myself and bum myself out more. However, my husband did mention yesterday morning that he could tell I've lost weight, so apparently I haven't undone all the work I've done. I have until May 8 until my next check-in with my doctor, so hopefully by then I can regroup and get myself together again.

The biggest bummer is that my exercise is almost nonexistent this month. It's not about using it to lose weight: I've got a 5K race in June and I really want to be able to do it without collapsing! That's me on the right in that picture over there from last year's race, with my friend Jen and my daughter standing in front of us. I've GOT to get myself back to walking regularly and at length, because I don't want to make an a** out of myself. It's just been so darn tough lately to find the time. There are days I'm up at 5:50 a.m., get daughter to school and be at work by 8; out at 3, make an early dinner for my daughter so we can leave by 4:15 to get to gymnastics; run errands during her practice, then get home at 8:45 p.m. and hope to be in bed by 9:30 so I can start it all over again the next day. The good news is, some of the other gym moms want to start walking together when the weather improves (it was snowing here today!), so maybe that will help.

I will do my best to stay more up-to-date here, but I've recently been bitten by another fever: Facebook! It's hard to stay away from it and I've tracked down a lot of friends from my college days, which is v.v. cool!