Slugday

This morning when the alarm went off, I decided I needed a day off. Or at least half a day. I miss the routine I got into around the time of my hysterectomy, when I spent many weeks having the whole morning to take my breakfast back to bed and read or blog while the tv played in the background. In the last couple of months, the task of selling, buying and moving house has become my job and has managed to occupy most of my waking hours and attention. I am fighting with a cold right now - the type that travels around your body and seems to leave for a day just to return, maybe because I need more rest.

However, as a doctor pointed out, I am not so good at "self-care" and he's right, dammit. Why it is so hard for me to accept this as a helpful observation, not criticism? He told me I have to take better care of myself, and I have to admit I'm not sure exactly how to go about that. Ok, I'm getting the eating better stuff pretty well, but as someone who has been obsessed with food most of her life, it's not surprising that that was the first thing I would tackle.

The physical exercise stuff is an interesting journey. It took me over five years, but I went from no exercise to maybe too much. Before my surgery I was exercising too much, perhaps even compulsively. I was going to the gym religiously 3 times weekly, plus running at least 3 times weekly, and I had developed some sports related injuries in my shoulder and knees. I think that in some area of my brain, I believed that if I didn't exercise nearly every day, I would fall apart. Some of the scenarios lurking in my semi-conscious were: gaining back a lot of weight, losing all discipline and never exercising, just a general avalanche of backsliding. Well, it hasn't happened yet. I am going to the gym much less, but I'm still running 2 or 3 times a week with my group and/or Fuzz (wow, never thought that day would ever come to pass. He was always the fit one!) and I'm doing things like gardening, home reno, packing and extensive cleaning. Checking my weight monthly, I've gained 2 pounds at the most. So the physical stuff is ok right now, it's still a discovery process that I suppose will continue.

I guess the hard part of self care for me is discovering the difference between being good to oneself vs. overindulging. A morning in bed feels dangerous to me for some reason. I feel shame over it. And yet I regularly plug myself into the television for hours on end late at night. It's like, well, it's late, who does useful work then? And yet I feel I never have time to write or meditate. Why don't I do it then instead of watching the Late Late Show? Oh, I don't know. Maybe I need this guilty pleasure. It isn't accompanied by Late Late Eating any more, so what's the problem? Dial it back, honey. Even Martha has help.