Reprieve

I have falling into the all too familiar groove of postponing getting serious unt some magical stars align; warmer weather, feet that don't hurt, some magical new energy store that will come from out of the heavens I suppose. Friday was rough, with very little down/free time. A friend was messaging me for hours and my husband and son were back and forth about my son not trying hard enough to get a job, the car my husband got 3 weeks ago (due to smashing his in a snow storm after Christmas) is having major issues, and I was trying to help solve a problem for/with my friend who recently lost her mother and 4 trying to help plan a getaway involving 4 people with different schedules and different ideas of fun and things weren't going well and finally around 8 PM I told my friend I was done talking/thinking about it because I had a genuine raging headache from all of it and nearly zero time after work to appreciate the fact that it was Friday. It snowed on Friday too so I had to navigate out my steep driveway to get groceries. I also learned of a terrible fatal work accident in my town and it happened to be the father of a former coworker of mine. Sadly he passed away. A number of acquaintances have had losses in their families lately and its depressing. I decided on my way to the grocery store that this weekend I was going to eat crap due to my foul mood. I felt like I needed it. My friend and I are now not on great terms and she basically told the three of us to forget about her in not so many words. I resorted to my old ways of stress eating. Saturday afternoon we got some subs and I ate chips and ice cream sandwiches. I noticed how terrible those ice cream sandwiches made me feel physically but mentally it felt good to indulge and not care. Physically they made me feel sluggish and bloated and sad. I have been in such a funk this winter. It probably doesn't help that, after his accident, my husband is really not liking winter driving and he seems so irritated about winter in general. We have had so few days where the windchill is above zero that it feels like we live in the arctic. Today it actually got into the 40's above zero (Fahrenheit) which is crazy warm for Wisconsin in February. The wind was gusting 30-40 miles per hour which still made it chilly but it still felt like early spring. I spent the morning reading The Great Gatsby and then my husband decided we should go to the beach. It's only a ten minute walk but with my bum foot we decided to drive. The beach is now overtaken by huge ice shelves and with the crazy wind we were treated to quite a spectacular show when the waves crashed into the ice shelf and shot up like a water volcano!

We stayed about 2 hours and by the time we were leaving the winds had died down and it just felt like a gorgeous spring day. It did my mood so so good! We have a major snow storm heading our way tomorrow and Tuesday so I am happy we had some small reprieve for a day. The beach felt therapeutic; I haven't been there since fall. All that walking on the rocks made my foot feel terrible, when in recent days I have had a few really good days where it only felt slightly bruised. It's clear that this foot issue isn't going to go quietly. At work we have a wellness program. Im the past they used to be very active at promoting in. They used to hold monthly 5K run/walks on our local trails, or have contests that focused on getting a certain number of steps each week or drinking a certain amount of water, etc. When COVID hit they stopped doing them. Finally there was a new challenge posted this month. It was very vague, "fill your bucket" challenge. I thought this could be something that could push me to get more active and stop making excuses. When I checked it out I found out its about acts of kindness. I will still do it but I was a little disappointed that it wasn't going to be the push I was hoping for. BUT I don't need someone else to set goals for me. So I have decided that not only am I going to do this work challenge but I'm going to set some goals of my own. For the next 30 days I am challenging myself to do 1 thing that is good for my mental health, and 1 that's good for my physical health. I want it to actually be a challenge in hopes that I can change by starting the action first in order to create the motivation after. Yes, my foot sucks but I bet there are things I can do that don't hurt it (stationary bike and maybe dancing). I have been letting it be an excuse when my mental health needs it the most.