I want to regularly share my thoughts, but I'm bad at sitting down and doing it. I know I always say that I'm going to get better at it and then I start a million posts, only for them to be left abandoned in my drafts folder. I want this year to be different. I want to start updating more. I need to be self-aware and in order to do that, I need to be accountable to something. This is my way of being accountable. Maybe whoever reads this, if anyone is, can help keep me accountable. Ask what's going on with me. Why haven't I updated in a month? Am I still accountable for my mental health and physical health? I think so long I've been only worried about my physical health and mental health separately, when in reality, they need to go together.
For the past two and a half years, I was planning a wedding. It was a great undertaking and it's finally over. I've been married for almost four months. I think it was easy to push myself to the background because I had to meet a deadline. My wedding was coming, come hell or high water. I needed vendors. I needed place cards. I needed invitations. I spent hours on Pinterest, worrying about seating charts, comparing pricing on decor, on message boards. I basically ate, slept, and breathed my wedding planning. Now that's all over and in many ways, I'm alone with my own thoughts. It's not a bad thing. It allows me to take stock of myself. I've been trying to take stock of myself since I turned 30, two years ago, but allowed wedding planning to be my excuse to continue living an unexamined life. Now it is time to examine and take stock. So where am I at?
A year and a half ago, I was informed I was pre-diabetic. Diabetes runs rampant on one side of my family and I wanted nothing to do with that. I knew I had to make changes. I was told I should consider weight loss surgery. I'm not against weight loss surgery, but at that time, I couldn't say I'd made an honest effort. I told my doctor that I needed to make an honest effort and he connected me with a nutritionist. She tried to help me, but I wasn't getting a lot out of it. She was giving me a list of products to buy, but not what kind of recipes I could be making at home. That wasn't helping me. I was making a half-hearted attempt at going to the gym, but it wasn't really working for me. She did the best thing she could have done for me and told me that she didn't have anything else to offer me and referred me to the weight management center. She said I could go back for a follow up after I met with the team there... I never went back. I found a partner in my nurse practitioner. She coached me through summer barbecues, my wedding, the holidays. And now she's there for me through the setback of enjoying baking in the winter. She never puts me down, but helps me find solutions. Right now I'm kind of stuck, but I'm sorting through that... so that's where I'm at with my physical health.
As far as my emotional health... when I was a kid, I grew up in a state of chaos. As an adult, that chaos has manifested as physical clutter. I'm currently sorting through the emotional chaos and physical chaos. It's hard and scary in a way that I struggle to put into words. The truth is, when I donate things or trash things, it's like I have separation anxiety. I know I don't need the things anymore, but not having those things is terrifying. What if I need them? I probably won't... but what if I do? It's not like on Marie Kondo where there's a little struggle, but then they part with the things they don't need. There are full on tears and it takes all day to sort through A box. If you say anything that feels a little like an attack, I go on the defensive. I will puff up and retaliate to protect that horribly vulnerable part of me. It's not exactly productive, but it feels so much more personal to me than those around me and I don't really know how to do deal with those kind of feelings. Don't worry, I'm in therapy and we're working on it.
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