What is self care anyway??

In the past few years I have made attempts to take care of myself.  The last 3 times I have been injured, it’s been either a direct or indirect result of exercising.

In my 40s I was in the best shape of my life.  I was running 5ks and I did my first (and only) half marathon (at Disney which was AMAZING).  I was strong and lean and vibrant… Fast forward to my mid 50s and I’m falling apart so fast I feel like I am decomposing on my feet… 🙁

Why did I let it go?  Well, I didn’t mean to.  It wasn’t a conscious effort to just quit doing all the right things.  But the truth is, little by little I made excuses are said, “Will do later” and later never came.  And I let it keep slipping and slipping until I lost all my efforts.  I tried a few times to get back to it and it’s hard to get started… I remember joining F45 and I loved it…but one compound move threw my back out for weeks and I never went back, afraid it would happen again.  Thank GOD for my chiropractor!!  That man has kept me going after every.single.injury!

Since then, I have had a few other incidences… An ER visit for my back and then a knee issue that has taken me out for a few months now.  Each time I am thrown back to square one and in all honesty, I feel like I am losing hope in my journey to be healthy and strong. And with Menopause working its way into myself, it’s becoming an even slipperier slope….

I have posted before that the last few years of my life have thrown me some significant curve balls.. literally the hardest moments of my life to recover from…and to be honest…I let myself completely sink for a while into the abyss.  I have withdrawn and given up on things I once loved because in the wake of “life”, they just didn’t seem to interest me anymore.  Nothing did…

The past few months I have VERY slowly felt myself coming back to life.  I will NEVER be the same…but that doesn’t mean I will suck more than I did or be stronger than I was … I will just be different.

Let’s face it… childhood tricked me into thinking when I grew older things would be great.  And though they aren’t bad, I mean, I have had a very blessed life… it’s been fraught with much stress and much pivoting from what I thought my life would be like.  That said, God Bless my parents for making it look easy … They never burdened us with the fact that they lived paycheck to paycheck sometimes.  My dad had his eye on the ball when it came to providing for his family.  My mom was always present as well and they raised us the best they could with what they have,  And I am grateful for that.  Kids really shouldn’t have to worry where their food is coming from.  I know I was blessed as a child, but it made me wanna grow up and become my own individual.  And here I am… the jokes on me.

Everyone says “Old Age Sucks” but they never actually tell you why.   And the truth is, everyones issues are different.  But now that I am facing this emergence from the abyss, I’m fraught with more struggles than I anticipated and the tasks of self care seem way more daunting.

I heard someone say, “Figure out who you want to be and do what that person would do”.  What great advice… Only, I have NO IDEA who or what I want to be.  I sometimes feel like joy is on the other side of something and I don’t know what that something is, so I don’t know where to start.

However, recently, I have decided to just start with the littlest of tasks.  And I am talking so little as “just get the dishes done and clean at least one section of the counter”…  I have been able to keep this up for a while and I’m glad about it.  My next task was to up my daily step count.  Most people say 10,000 steps, but I couldn’t even go that far so I looked toward 5,000 steps…  And on most days I have reached that.  I have sinced upped it to 7k and I will continue from there….

But other areas of my life I need to focus on; minimizing screen time (doom scrolling), journal more (which is what I am doing here and sharing with you all)… Make my bed every day… stretch my body, take inventory on things I do not like about myself and work on changing those (like doom scrolling), minimize alcohol consumption… Find a short term goal to work towards (this is where I am at a total loss)… purge stuff I haven’t touched in years and make room for new… and many others.  I need to make my list and start chipping away.  The fog is slowly lifting, but I have to remember that life is a journey…it’s a marathon and not a race.

We are all doing our best to survive and there are times in our lives where the tasks are insurmountable.  I love the saying that when you are going through hell…just go through it…go right through it and just keep going until you get to the other side (Angelina Jolie)….  She’s right.  Some people get stuck and sink into depression, never to recover.  I think my friends and family would never let that happen.  I’m thankful for those who have been on the other end of the phone, or met with me and let me cry…. I am thankful for the long hugs that just squeezed the emptiness out of me for a time.  I’m thankful for the ability to speak my truth and have people listen.  I’m thankful for those who took a bullet for me and shielded me with your compassion (you know who you are).  I’m thankful for those who forgave me my wrong doings.  I’m thankful that I lived to write about it because there are days I didn’t think I would make it.

Support is everything in this life.  Finding your tribe is so important.  I’m lucky because I meet people easily, but I know there are those who don’t have that skillset, or even those who just don’t have the capacity for it.  But know that there are times in life we simply cannot do it alone.  If you can’t phone a friend…find a therapist.  There is always support out there and I pray that anyone who is going through something knows someone they can turn to in times of need.  But more importantly is the ability to realize when you need that support.

And as I work my way through trying to work on my own self care, I will take the small wins… First I need to figure out who I want to be and start living like that person would.  I need to put this wounded person to bed and let the new me emerge.  The truth is, we are ever changing and that’s okay.  I mean, I’m not gonna lie…I would like to go back to that super fit girl that I was in my 40s … but I’m here now … let’s see what we can make of this girl!  And as I close, I can mark another task off my list… that’s one task closer to the girl I wanna be… little by little…