I haven't written in a while because I didn't slow down long enough to let myself contemplate life...
The first week I was back from Costa Rica I ran my first trail run half-marathon at Smith Rock. It was a gorgeous, ass-kicking route.
The weekend after I ran Hood To Coast with an amazing team.
I was feeling blessed. Work started back up and everything should of felt in place, but even though I was busy and doing all the things I loved I felt stagnant.
I came home from Costa Rica with a new perspective for life, but it only enhanced the realization that I am still getting back on my feet from the life I once had which made me want to scream. It has almost been a year now since my life radically changed. I feel silly because it is just a number but I am so excited for that one year mark. No more firsts without Jordan. No more first Christmas or Thanksgiving, I have ran many races where he is not at the finish line, I have completed so many firsts this past year without him there to cheer me on or support me when things have become tough. For me this one year mark is big because I keep proving to myself how brilliant, amazing and strong I can be.I have not only pushed forward but I have grown in ways I never expected, I have gained hobbies, passion and new relationships I would of never had if everything had stayed the same.
And even though I am excited for this one year mark it made me realize how stagnate I felt. Nothing had actually changed since we broke up. Same job, same living situation, same everything pretty much and I wasn't OK with that. It felt as though my stagnation was eating away at my well-being. I was then dealt the news I didn't make the second cut for Peace Corps, which was a blow to my ego but deep down inside I was relived in a way. Either way this news shook me to my core and I made some drastic changes. I moved in with two close friends and told my boss I was looking for a new job which somehow got me promoted to Therapeutic Behavior Coach. For the past two months I have been trying to find my footing at in my new home and my new job.
It has been chaotic and on top of all of it I have been marathon training and trying to keep up an all too active social life.
(AKA I have been doing the common Rosemary mistake of going 1000 miles per hour until I crash).
And I did crash, I crashed today. I felt it coming. I woke up early this morning and tossed and turned. My mind was racing. As I got ready for work I had this pit in my stomach. It is hard to describe but it is this anxious pit where everything in life feels like it is precariously balanced and one wrong move will make everything crumble. My crumbling moment happened when I was in a meeting with my boss and he pretty much told me to be a role model for my team, to keep my shit together when everything seems completely messed up and talk to him and as a team we will figure it out. It is hard to explain the complexity of the meeting because it is difficult to describe what I do exactly at my job, all I can say is it is fucking hard and has been literally and figuratively kicking my ass.
I couldn't take this pressure from my boss. I wanted to scream. I don't have the capacity to work with my behavioral students and somehow seem like I have my shit together to the staff around me when my students are physically attacking me.
I left work for the day and took my anxiety meds when I got home and looked for new jobs. My day was spent dozing in and out and looking for jobs, not really processing anything, just numbing myself enough to get through the day.
Then I found out I didn't get into Boston Marathon, even though I made my qualifying time.
I proceeded to convince myself that the universe was against me.
I was really down and out and so I took the positive actions of setting an appointment for acupuncture for later in the day. When I got to the clinic the lady told me I didn't have an appointment. I about lost my shit until an acupuncturist came out and somehow had an open slot for when I was suppose to have an appointment.
I thanked the universe right then and there.
Acupuncture allows me the time to disconnect and really hone in on life and what I need to dig deep into. I took two hours to dig and dig. As I walked home I cried and cried and realized the world doesn't owe me shit.
The world owes us, human kind, nothing. If anything we owe the world and as this realization set in I started to realize I am not on this earth for the universe to make my life pretty and perfect.
Something instead has driven me to work with really hard individuals and honestly I am exhausted from the work and its only been three years. I feel like I am swimming upstream as dead, stinky fish float past me and I just want to let go and float with the dead fish.
I never wanted anything more than that today. I haven't been that low in a very long time and it scared me. I have come to far to feel so dark.
So I told myself what I normally tell myself:
"PULL THE STICK OUT OF YOUR ASS ROSEMARY"
and I did and this is what I decided. The universe, as much as I want to believe it is out to get me, is not. The lovely universe is only teaching me lessons that I need to be taught, the universe it teaching me how to communicate, how to advocate, how to listen to myself and my needs. The universe is teaching me once again to trust my gut and listen to myself.
To slow the fuck down.
I am always being to taught to slow down.
Because when I look back on the past three week I have been going for it, hard, refusing to slow down even though I wasn't feeling like myself. I could feel the anxiety creeping in. I had the universe silently whispering in my ear that if I kept going at this speed I would implode.
Implode I did and now I am back to re-centering myself.
I made these two jars that I have written on them "life" and "work". In these jars I am placing a slip of paper every day that says one thing positive that happened at work and in life. I have pulled out my "Moments of Mindfulness" book and set my alarm early so I can go for my two mile wake up jog and morning yoga practice.
I know my job isn't going to get any easier and I may find a new job, I know nothing in life is going to get easier. We don't learn how to thrive if life is easy. The cliche saying is true, the toughest times teach the best lessons.
