Take on the world or take a nap? Decisions decisions…
Do you know what’s amazing? How quickly new and different can become the norm. Accepted. Expected. How quickly the human brain can assimilate.
I’m tired lately. Often sleeping more than 8 hours. And having a hard time getting out of bed. I have been having (and remembering – which is unusual for me) vivid nightmares and anxiety dreams. I have been getting tired earlier in the evening. Physically too. Finding it hard to sit up at the table after dinner. Want to go be limp on the couch or on my super-comfy chair on the porch. I’m having a new, minor outbreak of my eczema. And found out I’m allergic to something else I didn’t know about before.
I have been feeling kinda beat up. (Not emotionally unhappy. Just put through the ringer.) And I have been wondering why.
And then today I looked at the calendar, and I realized that I have been here, in my new life, for less than 7 weeks. Not even 2 months.
And a bunch of stuff has happened in this 7 weeks. Good and bad. Exciting and stressful. It’s not like it has been one big 7 week vacation. But the important part, the relationship part, has been so natural, that it seems like it has been going on for years. So I forget. That I need to adjust. Yes, even though it seems like regular life by now.
I know I’ve touched on this topic before. But apparently I forget things I already know. So I’m telling you again. Because I’m telling myself again.
Because this happens to me all the time. I start something huge, like quitting sugar, or quitting smoking, or, in this case, moving half way across the country and starting a relationship, and I adapt. Quickly. And then I wonder why my body is “acting up.”
These things that are happening right now – the dreams, and the fatigue, and the eczema – these are all things that have happened to me before when I have made big changes.
And even now, I am anticipating that this should end soon. Soon. In a week or two, right? Isn’t two full months enough? Can we get a schedule nailed down here?
If I were a friend of mine, I would laugh. And tell me to give myself a break.
But there is this part of me that thinks I’m so special. You don’t understand. I’ve got this. I’m settled now, and I know how this works.
I so often give so much honor and credence to my thoughts, and so little to my body. It’s a bad habit. One that almost certainly stems from when I was fat. And shame for my body made me think of it as “not me.”
But of course, it is me. And, frankly, my body is significantly more honest and straightforward than my mind.
My mind tells me that if I were good enough, if, I would be healthy, and full of energy, and ready to take on the world. That I have had enough time to adjust. That I should be done adjusting.
My body, on the other hand, tells me that the reality is that I am not. It wants me to take care of myself. Take my time. Take it easy. Be patient with myself.
And that slow, still, quiet voice in my heart, the one I started to hear when I stopped eating sugar and started putting boundaries around my food, reminds me there is no “should” and no “if.” That if there were another way for it to be, it would be that way. That I am exactly as I should be. Nightmares and eczema and all.
Note to self, sit still and listen to that voice more often…
onceafatgirl 