Surreal

 Part of my life feels like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. Strange. Fictional. And yet, there's a beauty to my current life that was missing in my previous one. 

I recently read through my Jan 2021 blog post about my sleep goal. And how proud I was to get to sleep at 11:30pm for most of January. I will tell you that the goal didn't hold. By the end of 2021 I was going to bed at midnight on the regular. And Wendell continued to resist to visit with me. That's not why we got divorced, but it's interesting that it was a symptom of much deeper problems that I felt, but could never put my finger on. Until my world was upended in February 2022 with news that shocked me to the core. Shocked the kids. I had thought I knew who my husband was. Turns out, I didn't know him at all--a strange thing to say after 25 years of marriage.

And thus the Twilight Zone sensation. 

What's interesting is how different my life is now. Here's a few things that are notably different. 

1) I go to bed before 11:00pm every night. It's very, very rare for me to be up that late. 

2) I rarely watch TV. That was Wendell's thing and so it was our thing to do together. I have always thought of it as pretty lame. Now that I don't feel pressure to watch TV, I don't. 

3) My house is in order. I didn't put it in order by myself. With the help of my ministering sisters and another dear friend, we got my bedroom, living room, and kitchen in order (in that order). My room remains tidy. My living room remains tidy. My kitchen ebbs and flows a little more, but it's been remarkable. 

I am a huge subscriber of the thought that you have to throw things out/give away things in order to really tidy up. And all of a sudden, I'm the only decision maker. I don't have to run anything past anyone. I just decide. 

This one is particularly strange to me. If you'd sat Wendell and me down in January and asked why our house was a mess, we would have both said that it was me. I was the reason our house wasn't in order. This was my personal failing. And yet, once things are set in order, I'm easily keeping them that way. And I don't know why this is so easy. But it is. And I wonder if that limiting belief--that I couldn't keep a tidy home--was ever mine. Or if it's just something I picked up and it wasn't true. I've believed it for 25 years. But I have so much evidence already that it is false. 

4) I'm getting the best sleep of my life. Literally why do we share beds/bedrooms with spouses? It is complete bliss to never be awakened in my sleep by someone snoring, rolling over, getting bumped or kicked. I don't worry when I make my 4:00am bathroom run. I never have to worry about the covers (am I sharing, is he too hot or too cold, will I get blamed in the morning). It is amazing. Everyone should try it. 

5) I am making tough decisions, fixing household items and learning to reach out to new resources all by myself. It's interesting how when a spouse has certain limiting thoughts about you, that over time you adopt those thoughts. I can't drive on road trips. I can't fix household things. I can't keep a tidy home. None of these started with me. I wasn't raised this way. But over time I believed each of these things with intense surety. They were all false. I have within me the ability to do anything I need to. 

Just the other day, the kids were at school and I walked around my house amazed at how tidy everything was. Everything has a place. It feels like I'm living someone else's life. Yet it's mine. My beautiful life. I didn't even know it was possible. 

New Family

 In February, my life was completely upended. Literally, it felt like being upside down. I couldn't breathe.  I just walked around with my hand over my heart, tapping it periodically, to try to keep me breathing. Wendell moved out on February 17 and by the 18th we had jointly decided to divorce. 

The last two months have been among the hardest of my life. But I'm slowly getting my bearings. I have taken over tons of things that used to be "Wendell's job" including some that would surprise him that they were "his" job. But I'm getting rather proud of the things I've done by myself.

• Getting air in my tires
• Taking my car through a car wash
• Getting an oil change
• Getting new family pictures taken with just me and kids
• Buying a lovely, comfortable chair for my room
• Buying new decor for my room (thanks to my amazing sisters)
• Going out with friends on the weekends

I'm starting to feel happy by myself and even look forward to the life I can create on my own. I'm being stretched, which hurts, but I'm also learning. And I love learning. 

February's Theme | Movement

 February's theme was movement. This is one that I wanted to be very careful to be broad. In my Facebook post in my group I  wrote, "Remember our yearly theme is self-care.... You are not 'bad' if you miss moving or don't achieve your goal. Movement can be anything--exercise, stretching, yoga, parking further away, physical therapy, etc."

How did I do? 

In January, when my focus was sleep, I worked out (based on my app on my phone/watch) 11 times. Not bad! It was once for every three days. It was decent. In February, when my goal was movement, I worked out 16 times! This is a notable improvement. In fact, my first week, I worked out 5 times in a row. Since the pandemic I haven't felt comfortable working out in a gym, so I stuck to walks and using some beginner workout videos I bought in a program around Christmas. 

What I learned

I love that in my own group, I had to identify everything that counted as movement. This helped me mentally increase my flexibility. I think a lot of times, we don't give ourselves as much credit as we should. But this flexibility helped me give myself more credit.  There were a couple days that I just wasn't feeling it. Reminding myself that stretching counted got me downstairs with my exercise mat for 15 minutes of stretching.  How did I feel afterward? Much better.  Glad I'd done it. 

I was diagnosed with juvenile onset of rheumatoid arthritis when I was 10. It really started acting up when I was 14. And it continued almost unchecked in its destructive path until I started gold (a treatment given by injection) when I was 16. Still, I have flair ups, stiffness, good days and bad ones.  Though, since my late 20s, it just hasn't been as bad as it was when I was younger.  But I *must* have flexibility in my workouts. 

I've also learned that apps are stupid.  One day, I can go on a walk and my watch will give me credit for every step.  Other days it almost doesn't give me credit at all.  Seriously, yesterday I went on a walk and it gave me credit for 34 minutes of exercise. Today's 20 minute walk gave me one minute of credit.  One. Ridiculous. So I try to watch for other measures on the app as well. In the summary section, it gives me up or down arrows based on various measures: move goal (cal/day), average minutes exercised, stand hours, stand minutes, walking pace, and distance.  In January, move, exercise, and distance were all down arrows.  But after my efforts, move and exercise are both up and distance has improved by 0.1, even though it's still 0.1 off of my yearly average. 

These measures give me such calm even on days that I didn't get a workout. I may find that my move goal was higher than normal, or my exercise exceeded my current average or that elusive distance goal was above the norm.  Noting these successes help me stay focused on movement, which is ultimately the goal. 

We also jumped through several hoops to add a year membership to our current recreation center pass.  Our rec center has been closed for renovation and will finally be open March 20.  (I'll get my 2nd Covid vaccine on the 19th.) With two vaccines on board, I feel totally comfortable using the gym again. But because we'd paused our membership and were taking advantage of a sale, we had to have the rec center director help us.  It took a few phone calls and some effort, but I think this was a "movement" success too, because it's setting our whole family up for more movement for a year plus all in a wonderfully redone facility.