That's one way not to be whole...

 Oh my, what a month this old girl has had.

Started out having to cancel the last game with a nasty knee....Had to cancel a Sisterhood workshop...had Covid in the house....Emery had some medical work done....saw some shows....took some time off work....been spending a shit ton of money on PT and massages and stuff...and oh the knee....pretty much haven't been to the gym.... The knee is frustrating.

 

This has been, not just a lot of stuff going on, but honestly; this has been a really hard month for me. You know in my brain space.

After practice yesterday (which was a mixed bag) I found myself in, well, a pretty rapidly declining dissociative state...or as I imagine it more often...I was rapidly compartmentalizing....shoving everything in little boxes in my brain in the hope of shutting down some of the pain.  Yea...yea...that's what I do. 

It really is a decent survival tool, Hell not only survival, but honestly a life skill.  I mean...we all have to pack things away til we can deal with them sometimes.  It's why we behave differently with different people or at work or whatever.  

But, sometimes the little compartments are not very...helpful... sometime I break myself down into such small pieces that honestly I don't know who the fuck I am anymore.  

I also know that these little places I shove myself into often make me come off as cold or whatever...and the longer I stay in situations that I know are not good for me, the colder and more distant I get.  Sadly, I have been like this...well always...which has contributed to me, even though it's a good survival skill, keeping me in harmful relationships for far too long....Like FAR too long.

I also don't often speak up or speak out because I am busy constructing another little compartment to shove part of myself into.

Anyhoooo, something happened yesterday that send me shooting deep into myself...and as we were driving home Grant asked me what was going on....I said nothing....I mean like shhhhh I'm busy creating tiny new shitty boxes to shove something down....and he just says, "you are really pulled back."

He has said this to me before.

Sometimes I will just say I know, I'm just thinking....or I will reassure him that it isn't "him." but that didn't happen yesterday.

I fucking lost it.

You know it's like if you squeeze a container with the lid closed....well....the pressure is gonna make something happen...

So, I erupted like a tube of toothpaste....glopping everywhere...in the moment it was scary, then it felt good...it felt good to let myself feel....really feel what I was feeling. Unfortunately, I shoved the hammer and boards and nail in my brain so fast to shut that shit down, to box it up.  I wish I could have sat with that much longer.  With my anger, with my fear, with my heartache....really let it move through me and not just into another box in my psyche.

But....I have always done this...it feels all to comfortable and even though it is a ton of work...it is also the "easy" choice?

I left myself feeling super shut down yesterday, but I did think of sharing this, so maybe that is something...then I had this thought.

If I have compartmentalized so much, so strictly for so long, then, who am I? 

Who am I?

And....Can I at least expand some of these compartments, would that make me feel more whole? Is it worth that work....it's not scrooge here...this is 50 years of being this way...this isn't a ghosts are gonna visit and everything is gonna change thing....

For some reason, I suddenly feel like there is more risk in building more boxes...the shutting down is beginning to feel, deadly.

Anyway, here is a pretty cabinet...I'm sure my brain isn't this lovely.

Moving.

So...it has been a long weird "season" for me.  I was supposed to be in Tucson this weekend, but my knee was telling me otherwise and now, well.....Grant is super sick.  Yup after more than 2.5 years he finally got covid; so we would have had to cancel anyway.  Emery and I don't seem to have it, but we are all being careful in the house.  (Emery and I have also kept up with certain measures that help with not contracting it or making symptoms milder....so...yea)

ANYHOO......I started the off season last year needing a break...I ended up taking a break from the gym and trying yoga for a month. Which has, well, turned into a year.  And....it has been pretty much every dang day.  Recently I have started to do some days on my own without the videos. This month though the month's focus is "meditation" so...I think I kinda need that.

I also eventually changed gyms and changed trainers too. I am really looking forward to what this next year will bring from these folks at Elevate.  I worried for too long that I was not right for that place or that I was being judged for being, well....me....chubby~old~odd?  But I've let that go.

One of the trainers at Elevate came up to me recently and said that during a meeting or something they had talked about me and how I laugh in the gym. I immediately apologized and he said..."no...no...it's great...you are having fun."  And I am...I mostly laugh at myself when I am clumsy or when I try something new and can actually DO IT.

I also gained some weight this year....kinda a lot....and I sometimes struggle letting that simply be.  I knew trying to heal from years of eating disorders might have that effect, I was warned.  Ha.... and I must confess....I had a slip...I tried "just doing a sort of diet" a "this isn't a diet" diet...and boy oh boy...how quickly I slid right back into the disordered thinking..compulsive counting, weighing food, and weighing myself twice a day....didn't take much to trigger that shit. So, I am trying to refocus and let go and LISTEN...to my body.  

I read something from a dietitian who works with people actively healing from this crap and she warned that someone like me may never be able to focus on what she calls "intentional" weight loss...As soon as you count a little and see a little loss, then you restrict more and more to keep that going until...well you are right back on that roller coaster.  Which from my little experiment this year....yeah...that rings true for me.

One of the other things that shifted for me was goal setting...I realized how negatively I was talking to myself about my throwing because I am older and heavier.  I had a shift in Norway.  Being around all those amazing athletes...and really taking it in that I actually belonged there; I started to find joy...real joy in moving again.  Not as punishment for being fat...or punishment for eating too much.....or to balance out the "see I am a good fat cause I work out" horror show of self hatred.

And you know....I have thrown better than I have in YEARS once I started to let some of that shit thinking slide off my back. Mid year I set goals...and you know I got 4 of the 8 I set.  

I think that is pretty cool.

So, I have 8 more goals for 2023....and I'll be even older, but why can't I?  Even if I can get 1...I think that would be pretty cool.  

And as for the moving with joy piece...these are from Wichita... which turned out to be my last game and not a great throwing day for me over all. I was out in the field goofing off and had no idea Larry Ventress was capturing this....what is this?

Oh right: Joy.

Pure fucking ridiculous joy that I can move.

 Do I still struggle when I look at these and think, "oh I don't look like an athlete...oh my gosh I am fat," yea...It is there a little....but I also remember how hard Laura and I were laughing and in that top photo...you can see that Grant was looking on and laughing too...and no one admonished me or pulled me aside to say "tone it down."  That voice, that judgement only comes from inside the house later...if you catch my drift.

Well, there may be some folks that saw this silliness in the field and were like...ugh....but as Dr Seuss said:

 

 

Or...move how you feel.... 😏

On to  my off season goals: healing the knee and my self talk.

See ya on the field in Phoenix!