Working on my (mental) fitness

I have to say thank you to everyone who wrote really kind words with response to yesterday's post about the anniversary of my mom's death. I was going to try to respond to all of them, but it was getting me emotional again (not in a bad way) and I already am worn out from yesterday. I'm one of those people who thinks about death being a part of life – it's something we all experience. Whether it's a family member or a dear friend or a pet, loss and grief are just two inherent parts of life. Does it suck? Hell yeah. Can we do something to change it? No.

After I wrote the letter to my mom yesterday, I got a little hysterical. I haven't felt grief like that since the day she passed away. I don't know where it came from or what triggered it (more so than being the anniversary of her death, which in years past never hit me this hard). It was a debilitating grief and my pup just let me hug on her while I tried to calm down and then sleep it off.

Things have been a little shaky with me lately, as I'm sure you've noticed with some of my posts. Perhaps yesterday's meltdown was partially a result of that. I'm frustrated with my ankle. Seriously, I want to stop talking about it. I feel bad, but in physical therapy I have just wanted to go “what good is this doing?!” They sense my frustration without me having to say anything though, and it seems that my tendon injury that I've had OVER 1 year now without much relief at all might actually be due to nerve issues in my back. So I've gone from treating it with insoles to rest to cortisone shot to boot to dealing with pain to cast to another boot to physical therapy for strengthening my foot to now physical therapy for my back plus strengthening my hips and core. Working my back has helped provide temporary relief so far, so I'm hoping that I can continue to work on it and I might see some more permanent relief. I've been in this sedentary state for too long and it's creeping into the old standby excuse of “well, I'm broken and it sucks so I'm going to just eat what I want.” Of course that's not how things work.

We all want to be superstar success stories. We think if we hit some big goal or benchmark that it will make everything better and it will become easier. Going through this completely physically stagnant year since the half marathon is making me a little batty. I want to prove I can be successful and that my hard work is paying off.

The crazy thing is that looking at things in this perspective is so one-sided. Proving something to readers or to skeptics or to friends is all external validation. What I need to focus on is internal validation.

Perhaps I need a visit from Stuart Smalley:

I'm still working on being my best. I'm not writing this to tell you, I'm writing it to tell myself. Without sounding like a cosmetics commercial, I'm worth it. Thanks for hanging with me.