The six months blur
The previous six months have been exactly that, a blur.
Looking back I can barely believe that I even had brain surgery this year, other than the scar down the back of my head that sneaks down onto my neck no one else would even know it had happened either.
So often I think I’m fine again, back to normal, the way I used to be… And then I think a little harder… Exactly when am I thinking back to? And then it dawns on me, the specific time in my life that I always seem to reflect on was when I was 28. Most probably the absolute peak of my organisational abilities, energetic stage and the most focused I have ever been in my entire life.
2012 was the year I gave birth to Ava and became a mother of two. I was working full-time at a University, began building up my freelance career and stepped on stage for my first and currently only bodybuilding show. Looking back I just don’t know how I even made it through that year, not only how I made it through but how I did it with so much positivity and with so much energy.
The trouble is that now I compare every single day to how I ‘used to be’ and surprise surprise I don’t live up to my own expectations. To be completely honest I truly believe that it has only just recently hit home that my surgery even happened, and now I feel as though my emotions are really beginning to show themselves.
Getting through one day to the next seems to be the first hurdle, I get so angry that I’m exhausted by the afternoon, then I get frustrated because I’m so unproductive. Day in day out I set myself targets, usually for work and then compare what I’ve achieved, or lack of what I’ve achieved to what I used to be capable of back in the 2012 golden year.
Because of these unrealistic comparisons I unintentionally send myself into a spiral of stress, which in turn sends me reaching for the painkillers and hiding myself away in the bedroom in the pitch black sleeping off the insanely bad migraine I’ve given myself. This wasting more precious work time. And so the circle begins again.
Writing all this down has made things go from frosted to crystal clear and helped me to see what the problem really is. Now while it seems obvious that I need to stop comparing myself to how I was in my peak year it’s not going to be easy for me.
I have however, found an amazing way to relax and thats paddle boarding.
We have a river down at the bottom of our garden and after having just one lesson I absolutely fell in love with cruising out on the water. There are evenings that are so tranquil that the water looks like glass, the rocks are so clear at the bottom of the river and there are shoals of various size fish skittering about underneath the board and its like I’m in the most relaxing place in the entire world.
Nothing but me, the water, the sheer natural beauty of the nature all around me and of course my little paddle puppy, Gurghi. In these moments I feel so incredibly happy and can think of nowhere else I’d rather be.
Unfortunately finding these moments is rare, I still get stuck in the rut of ‘there’s too much to do and no time to enjoy the right now’…
It’s time to force a change. Now.
