Because It Needs Doing

It's been a rough week for me, mentally. There's many contributors, the main ones being upheaval at work with a major division reorganization - my usual work day is not supposed to change much, but we'll see if that really holds true (if I don't bail out soon for a new role I'm interviewing for in a different division). It's less than a week before the 5K walk/run and my sponsorship isn't what I'd hoped it would be - though I'm not one to repeatedly beg friends and family for such things, so it's out there - see a few posts back to sponsor me if you wish. The weight loss efforts appear to be going through my monthly slow-down. For 7-10 days a month I seem to come to a stand-still, and then suddenly it just starts up again. I'm sure it's related to the Depo-Provera (new for me, at the surgeon's request), but it dampens the motivation a bit when you've been working like a fiend and not seeing it in the numbers.

And finally, the Man took my car to work (since he was out of gas) on Sunday, so I took his grocery shopping. When I was loading my bags in the trunk I found the little monkey backpack/child leash that we'd bought for T when we went to visit the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. on vacation. It's hard to believe it's been nearly 2 years since we did that (late May, 2010). It shocked me, I thought it was long gone, but there it was - and it rooted me to the spot for a good 3 minutes, leaving me flustered on the way home. I couldn't think of anything else to do with it but put it in the garbage can outside the garage after unloading the groceries. Every now and then I unexpectedly find something that hasn't been packed away, and it always startles me. It's not that there's no sign of them around anymore - the pictures that were in the living room and hanging in the hallway are now in the spare bedroom - since we cleared all the child furniture and things out of there and turned it into a spare bedroom when my father came for my MBA graduation last fall, it's not been the black hole behind the closed door any more. There's still that silly smiley-face t shirt the Man bought for T that says "Imagine if there were no Liberals" on it, folded and tucked halfway under something else on the top shelf of his closet - I see it several times a week as I hang up laundry. The picture from J's 1st birthday party that the Man still has as his screen saver on his Droid phone. The baby gate that used to be at the end of the hallway going into the kitchen is still leaning against the dining room wall next to the water cooler. I've become somewhat immune to those things, it's the unexpected ones that really throw me sideways, like the little stuffed Winnie the Pooh I found in the center console of my car about a month ago.

Saturday we went up the mountain to put Easter flowers out on the family grave site. I'm afraid we're going to have to take the lead in getting a head stone for the Man's mother - BIL is certainly dragging his feet. But we placed flowers for her, his father, his uncle, his paternal grandparents, and his cousin. Too many graves in that tiny church yard belong to his family - but there's also a strange sense of place in having roots like that. We talked about perhaps buying a decent tract of land up there and building a house - we'll see.

I did 6 treadmill workouts last week, since the 5K is coming up so quickly - Saturday morning I did a full 3 miles to make sure I wouldn't pass out from the effort - and it actually went quite well. I was tired of course, but didn't feel like falling over. I gave myself yesterday as a day of rest, and planned to get back to it today.

As I sat on a teleconference just before lunch, all I could think about was that I didn't feel like doing anything today. It wasn't particularly a physical block - but definitely a mental one. When I'm having trouble with depression I just want to curl up, not go sweat in the basement.

But sometimes, you do things you don't want to, Because It Needs Doing. That was my workout today - it was a tad short - 36 minutes instead of my normal 45, but that was the length of the rest of the Battlestar Galactica episode I was watching on Saturday (ftr - Season 2.5 finale, Lay Down Your Burdens - Part 2), and it was good excuse to stop there.

There's been a lot of things that Need Doing lately - and it's been hard to just do them. Harder, it seems, than the things that I Just Did after the Event, in keeping up at work and still going to school, and managing to actually kick ass with my grades despite the betrayal of at least 3/4 of my study team. People have commented on "how strong" I was then, how they would have just curled up in a ball and laid in bed. Oh how I wanted to, but I couldn't. There was the battle, as the larger wage earner I couldn't risk my job, and of course I'd already gone into a small mortgage worth of debt for MBA tuition, so there was really no choice in that either. I did those things Because It Needed Doing.

Looking back now, I don't know how I did. I know my stamina isn't really completely back yet, but it's getting there (I'd say I'm at about 85%). But I still have a lot of hard things to do ahead of me - including finishing this journey to leave (somewhat more than) half of me behind. I don't feel particularly strong, or empowered, or anything else. But things have to be done.

So I do things - Because It Needs Doing.