Yoga Pants Life

2017 was a shit sandwich for just about everyone in my life and while I wouldn’t say it was my best year, my year was actually pretty darn good (minus the start of Baxter’s seizures.) I went in to 2018 with really high hopes, but so far, 2018 can suck it. Hopefully I’m just getting all the crappy stuff out of the way in the front end of the year and the rest of my year will be unicorns, glitter and rainbows.

I’ve spent the last month writing my ‘January’ recap, but now that it’s March, I’m not sure it matters anymore.  February is such a short month and I spent much of it feeling physically awful.  I had a sinus infection that I took a course of antibiotics for and the antibiotics had some unpleasant side effects (I’m going to spare what those were because the interwebs don’t need to know) but needless to say, there were a few days in February where standing up and walking was painful, much less running and working out.

Obviously, I’m behind on marathon training. There’s still time to pull it together, but I may drop to the half. I’m also considering dropping out all together, as my sweet Baxter is having seizures again (after months of nothing) and I’m hesitant to leave him in the care of someone else right now, especially since medication is part of our regular routine. I’m contemplating paying the $45 to bump my registration to next year and hopefully things will be more settled by then (luckily, I signed up nearly a year in advance and it was dirt cheap, even with the $45 extra, I’d still be coming out ahead, by a lot.) I’m going to wait a few more weeks to make a final decision, because now that I’m getting back to a regular running routine, the thought of not doing it makes me sad too.

Everything feels really sad and heavy right now. There’s a part of me that really wants to write about it (because writing is cathartic for me) but the problem is that a lot of what’s causing me sadness and stress isn’t just about me and I don’t feel right posting about it. Though, I will say that I just had a birthday last week and birthdays always bring out the ‘what am I doing with my life’ question and not in a good way, so that’s not helping either.

I feel a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people are going through so much worse (and likely handling it better than I am right now.) While I’ve been through a lot of crap in my adult life, I have it better than most. I have a roof over my head, I’m in decent health and I can pay all my bills. That’s more than a lot of people in my community can say. However, ever since the death of my father at the age of 18, I’m constantly worried that everyone and everything around me is going to die and that’s something I’m struggling to work through. It’s like the smallest thing is a crisis and I’m always preparing myself for the worst case scenario (why, yes, I’m working with a therapist, thank you for asking!) 

I’m trying to find the bright spots in my life and I need to work on capitalizing on those as much as possible because realistically I know that life is one big cycle of happiness and suck, dark and light. It’s reassuring to know that light always comes after darkness, but less so knowing that the sun eventually sets – sometimes, it doesn’t come out at all.

So, that’s where I’m at right now.  I hope things start improving soon for my sweet Baxter soon, as well as for the humans I have in my life.  In the meantime, I’m going to keep plugging along, because, really…what other choice is there?

Hopefully more joyful things are ahead.