The Art of Not Losing Your Mind

Ooops. Perhaps it is all too late for me. When the monkey hat comes out, we’re all doomed. The Hot Mess has returned.

I woke up this morning still sick. Our family was hit by the Christmas plague. First, the girl Swim Bike Kid brought pneumonia home, then the Expert got something horrible and then me. The boy Swim Bike Kid spent most of Christmas sniffling and threatening to get the plague too, but it never panned out for him.

On my way to work this morning, I pulled the car into a random doctor’s office.

“I’m here. I’m a walk-in. I need to see a doctor.”

The lady behind the glass looked at me, “Well, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, I’m sick. I need some help. Some drugs. I mean meds. Or whatever.”

She stared. “Okay, have a seat.”

About a half hour later, I was being seen and sent home (well, to work, actually) with a prescription for an antibiotic and cough medicine.

I realized why the lady behind the desk looked at me so weird. Because the hot mess was back. Even she could sense it. When I got in the elevator at work, I realized had kale in my teeth. My hair was pulled half out of the bun, and I was wearing a ridiculous yellow coat.

I texted Sweet Red this morning and sent her this elevator picture and wrote, “Look. I’m so fat and ridiculous. I look like Paddington Bear.”

“You are not Paddington Bear,” she texted back. “You are an Ironman.”

“Ironman Paddington,” I wrote back.

The Art of Not Losing Your Mind? Why am I even writing about this? Oh hell, I don’t know what that is. I feel that I have lost my mind most of the time, and I am just wandering around, picking up pieces of it, gluing them back together so that I have portions of the mind left. I’m a half-assed mind.

For me, things rock my boat and I’m all out of kilter. Being sick, not training through the sickness, and (once again) stuffing so much (good) food in my face over Christmas… I can’t figure out where I keep going wrong.

Today, I feel absolutely… lost.

[Actually... nothing wrong with this meal. Holy guacamole.... it was insanely good. And the meal before that was good too... the Expert's cioppino. Okay, so Christmas was a food fest coupled with sickness, but it was grand really.]

Anyway…

So yes. Lost. I go from intensely focused, to complete wandering lost-ness monster. In a snap of the fingers. From happy and joyful, to complete doldrums. Alot of it may be the post-partum depression of unloading the book… it’s done and in all the distribution networks, so I am done with that project. Alot like post-race depression. That was an eleven month push, and now what?

Last night, I told the Expert, “I am just having a hard time figuring out what to do next.

He stared at me. “You need to get your nutrition in line and finish Ironman Coeur d’Alene. Nothing else. Got it?”

I sorta nodded.

“No new projects, Mere. You GOT it?”

I nodded again, reluctantly.

No new projects. No new projects. No new projects. No new projects.

Going into the New Year, I am going to continue to be hard on myself, because that’s who I am. [I am Ironman Paddington Bear.]

As far as my “resolutions” – I don’t believe in resolutions as much as I believe in setting goals and crushing them. Crushing! Woot! Okay. Well, that’s the spirit, anyway.

Trying out the Swim Bike Kid’s Princess Vanity

When I resolve not to do certain things (like stuff my face with pizza)… I am more likely to fail. I have found myself more likely to acheive a goal of finishing things… instead of drawing hard lines about what I won’t do…. I do better with the other “w” word… WILL.

I will be grateful for all I have. I will love my family with my whole heart. I will focus on my workouts. I will be diligent about my nutrition. I (holding breath here) will finish Ironman Coeur d’Alene.