Nobody said it was going to be easy

At the end of November, I took part in a Mo Run. And after that I drafted quite a long blog post, which just didn't seem to say what I wanted. Here's the second version...

Let's start with some context
- I had trained, and had even started doing parkrun alternate weekends as training by myself wasn't really working
- I then picked up a calf niggle which I didn't seem to be able to shift
- and the day of the run was sub-zero temps with icy pathways

My target was just to get round, as I had people sponsoring me.

So what happened next ?

The warm-up proved I needed to walk, both due to my fitness and due to the ice. But then all the other runners set off at a run - needless to say all my good intentions went out the window and I went with them.

Luckily it turned out there were other half a dozen other "walkers" and they slowed down once we were away from the start.

They started the 10k only 10 mins later and we were soon being over taken by the lead runners. I stuck to a brisk walk with the odd short jog thrown in when there was no frost and no other runners I would obstruct.

Between the 3-4k mark, the bicycle in front of the 10k lead runner went past me. I really don't know how the people running managed to stay on their feet in some sections - it was like an ice rink.

Before I knew it, I turned the top corner of the course and was heading back down to the finish. As my calf hadn't played up at all, I ran through the finish :)

Success - completed the run without making my calf hurt :)

But in what time ? I checked my app, just over 40 mins. Well that seemed odd as I know my speed to run the same distance is only a few minutes faster ?? But the distance looked short ... that's odd.

By the time I go home, my official time was in email - 40m02s. I started to feel good about my walk.

And then I saw the facebook posts - lots of people reporting a shorter distance for both 5km and 10km. Turns out they had shorted the course because of the icy conditions.... but forgotten to tell us.


What did I learn ?

- that if I can't run, walking is also good exercise and better than not being out there at all
- that I should trust how I feel about doing something, and not get sucked into times, PBs etc

- oh, and head bands aren't really my thing ;)

“Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye!”

Well then how come it feels like *everything* is passing me by ? None of that is for me ? Or just the bad stuff is for me ?

Yep, guess who is feeling sorry for herself.

Job is 'meh'

Looking after horses but not getting to ride (old, blind or unwell - them not me !)

Commuting 3-4 hours every day, worse if there are any issues. 

Permanently tired

Single, house is chaos, garden is a jungle

.....and due to above no time or energy to do anything about it

But of course the only person who can do anything about it is..... *me* 

Well that's not quite true. I can't mend the ill pony. All I can do is try and manage her pain, and make sure I ask the right questions and make the right decisions at the right times.

I can apply for appropriate jobs that come up. I just can't ensure they interview or appoint me. 

I do have complete control over what I eat, But as a comfort eater, having control and exercising it are two different things :( 

I do feel better if I can get out for a run, but the lack of hours means that is always a question of *not* doing something else.

 I know I need to focus on the right circle (Covey's Seven Habits...). But right now it feels more like playing whackamole !

via GIPHY“Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye!”

Unfriended

This time last year (give or take a few weeks) I was unfriended by someone on social media. 

I've been unfriended before, but it's been by distant acquaintances who disagreed with either something I said, or the company I kept (on social media). No big deal. 

This time was different. A person from distant past had got in contact. Tentative greetings turned into social media connections and an ongoing dialogue. The one thing I asked was that they were open and honest with me.

We rediscovered shared memories and shared common interests. It got intense, with multiple messages every day. Like this advert only without ever meeting.

And then, like the advert, it went from one extreme to the other. And when someone drops out of contact, you want to check they are ok..... especially where you know someone has been through difficult times in the past. I got monosyllabic responses. Now if someone is having a tough time, I get it. They don't want to spend time explaining it to all and sundry. All this person had to say was "I need some time"; but they didn't. 

A few exchanges later, they unfriended me on social media - which seemed like an over-reaction and kind of dumb given I also had their email address. But hey, they were sending a message - I heard it loud and clear (though I confess I made my opinion clear before I left them to it).

Since then, on and off, it's bugged me - what happened before what happened happened ? Was there some kind of trigger for this volte face ? Was it something I needed to learn from ?

And it's taken til now for the penny to finally drop (hey I'm slow sometimes).

It wasn't about the sudden change from hot to cold and how they handled that (badly). This person had *lied* - repeatedly, consistently and about multiple things. And despite being connected in social media, they seemed to forget that I could see all the other things they were posting. Over time those lies became more and more exposed.

I shouldn't be fretting about whether I did anything to cause them to step away..... I should just be thankful they did so. I don't need liars in my life.

Postscript: 

Since posting this I realised it's 10 years since the Lying Cheating Toerag went his merry way (and I found out he was a lying cheating toerag). Talking to someone today the usual point came up - how can you trust after that ? And yet I did, at least for a short while, let myself be taken in by another liar. I think it is fair to say that when you are feeling fairly bad about yourself, life etc then even if logic says the nice things they say are just words with no basis in fact, it is like a short term "fix" to the way you feel. No different to comfort eating, which is a vicious circle - the blatant flattery is like the sugar-high you get from a doughnut. You know it's bad for you, but for a brief moment it feels 

good. I guess I need to get better at saying no to doughnuts.

Leave a trail

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. "
Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's that time of the year - we have been having an informal school reunion for the last couple of years (since we hit 30 years from leaving school - where did the time go :o )

The reunion is over a weekend and we camp in the most gorgeous site - it is somehow both isolated and easy to get to, with patchy mobile signal so ends up feeling a bit like a retreat, but with best friends :)

Every year I come back feeling refreshed, more centred, and full of good intentions to "sort my life out". Needless to say, not much has changed when the next reunion comes around.

And as usual the long drive (around 8 hours in total, though I built in a stopover on the way home), added to the mass nostalgia of "do you remember when...." leads to a certain amount of review and reflection.

Driving around the area I grew up in, it's the same but different. I remember these paths, they are covered with foot, hoof and wheel-prints. (We were so spoilt in terms of hacking routes !)

Around the reunion events, I normally go and revisit bits of my childhood - people or places that are not part of the reunion itself. I left the area I grew up in around the time I finished school, as my parents also moved then. When we first all left school, we would organise get-togethers at Christmas or over the summer, but those slowly petered out. And for quite a while, I found going back depressed me. I'd never really thought about why.

Now when I go back, while it is not so "down", there is still both a pull and a push emotionally. There are places I can't quite face going yet. There is every chance it would be a non-event if I did go.I find myself pacing how much history I revisit. It's as if I am reclaiming my past, reintegrating history, piece by piece.

But this time I got to wondering why....I grew up out and about on ponies every chance I got, I went through school without any fuss or bother, a straight B student. The only life events I really had to deal with were in my sixth form when my father was made redundant (and it was his new job that triggered the move away), and losing my grandfather that same year.

I'm beginning to wonder whether it wasn't the place that was depressing, but having had to leave it. Although the last year there was fairly tough, so maybe I had simply associated the place with the events.

Close Contact

[Hmmm - this has been sitting here as a draft for a while and I am not sure why so... let's hit the publish button !]

Been pondering a few things. And also raking through some old posts on a different blog due to the demise of myspace blogging.

Back in 2007 there had been reports in the papers of some research (Manchester Metropolitan University) courtesy of Imperial Leather which says the incidence of hugs in UK is decreasing:

"Psychologists believe everyone needs at least one cuddle a day to help them cope with the stresses of 21st century living."and
"A survey found that a third of people received no daily hugs, while three-quarters yearned to be hugged more than they were."

Their conclusion ?

"Overall, we should get back to hugging. It is good for us after all."
Well count me in. :D

I guess the problem is how to make sure you get the nice hugs, but have a tactful way of getting out of the others. A nice hug is one of the best things you can do in public without getting arrested ;)

You do need to be hugging someone who does not mind people inside their personal space - a hug without contact is kind of pointless. I'm quite a tactile person at the end of the day - but I've been around enough people that aren't that I always hesitate slightly about going for the hug without a clear signal that its ok. There are people who genuinely struggle with that kind of close contact with other people. That has to be respected; it's their choice.

I guess there is also the "When Harry met Sally" question - can two people of the opposite gender (or same gender if that way inclined) hug in a completely platonic way ? I think so, but maybe that's just because I like hugging.

"It’s not what happens to you that matters, but how you take it.”

I'm reading a book called "Control Stress" by Paul McKenna. He quotes Dr Selye as saying

"It is not the event, but rather our interpretation of it that causes our emotional reaction."

I figured I would double check that quote, and the closest I could find was the one I have used as the post title.

"It’s not what happens to you that matters, but how you take it.”

Hmmmm. For a while I have been signalling pretty strongly that things are not good at work - to both my line manager and HR. And spent time looking at stress triggers etc etc. Not much happened as a result. From where I stood it felt that it wasn't a question of sheer workload, it was much more about behaviour. No clear direction, no prioritisation, a monty-pythonesque "the X important thing we need to do is...." (and replace X with an ever increasing number).

Then a colleague went off with stress, and another left for a new job. Now we have all the previous complexity and chaos, but exacerbated by 40% less resource in the management team.

So here I am.... stressed.  According to Dr Selye I should be able reframe that... reinterpret it... so that my emotional reaction is different.

Let's think this one through. Why does the situation stress me ? Because I have been given a job to do, on which I am judged. If things go wrong, current culture means fingers get pointed. If I did, somehow, manage to stop caring about doing a good job, I would get hauled over the coals the first time something didn't measure up to expectations.

Rock...me....hard place

:(

Self control

Had a bit of a weird end to the day yesterday and was a bit baffled by my reaction, which resulted in a rather introspective pondering. I struggled to put it into words effectively yesterday so am updating in an attempt to get it to make a bit more sense.

When the LCT left I remember wondering how I was going to cope and get everything done. I was lucky in having a lot of support to give me time to work out how to make it all fit. I guess what I did was come up with a number of coping strategies, like writing things down in multiple places to try and make sure I remembered them. Even then it was really a case of making sure as many as possible of the "must do"s got done, and if I was lucky a few of the "Shoulds" and "Coulds" might get done... maybe... on a good day, downhill with a following wind.

I know that I have to make choices - for example I can't go to work, get to exercise classes, work with my horse AND have a clean house. Any three of the four can get done, but not all four. There just aren't enough hours in the day. So if one of those is a "must", something else has to give. (And sadly work is pretty much a must all of the time !).

But I guess overall it was about control. About staying in control. And yet there are times I feel utterly out of control. Maybe I exert more control (and less uncertainty) in some areas of my life because I can, to counter-balance areas where I can't. But my house is chaos - does this really show someone who is in control ?

What triggered all this contemplation ? I managed to forget something. Nothing major, not really a must have. But for some reason it really really got to me. I think there is something sitting on my shoulder telling me that if I can manage to forget something small that doesn't really matter, I can just as easily forget something that does matter. It was a little scary to realise how stressed it made me feel - and how much of a failure - in a somewhat out of proportion way :(

I really don't like that feeling of not being in control of what is about to happen. Somewhere in my head I have a pretty constant feeling of teetering on the edge of a cliff.

I think maybe one the triggers here was letting other people down - one of my major dislikes is people who say they are going to do something.... and then don't, and that's exactly what I did this evening :(

But its still quite scary how close under the surface all this still is.