They Shoot Delinquent Bloggers, Don't They?

I know. It's been a while. That's the understatement of the century. To the point where I doubt anyone even checks in here anymore (can't say I blame you - it hasn't exactly been riveting around here). But that's okay - I wrote primarily as an outlet to get what's inside my head outside of my head, anyway.

K and I had a nice weekend, filled with parties for friends and time with family – it was good, and definitely what was needed. (Although I do feel bad that we both seem to ALWAYS fall asleep at my parents’ house.) I feel like we’ve been running around non-stop lately, and it’s not good for either of us, in many respects. I don’t anticipate that it will ever really go away, but I know there has to be a better way to manage it.

We’ve got a garden going again this year, and we just bought materials yesterday to build an enclosure that will, hopefully, keep out whatever has been eating all of our produce in the past. (Little bastards.) One (kind of) funny reminder of the fate of 99% of our strawberries last year are the little strawberry plants that we’re seeing in random places around the yard. So clearly whatever ate all of them stayed around long enough to crap out the seeds and sprout new plants. How considerate! At least it’s organic, right?

Work has been good for me lately – really, really busy, but good. I got a performance award in March and a promotion in April – probably the first one I’ve ever gotten. I mostly got it because I was doing the work required of the position already, and my boss had told me that he would want to promote me anyway. It is nice to feel actually appreciated for all the work I do – I am acutely aware that not everyone gets to feel that way, regardless of how hard they may be working. (Which was absolutely the case with my previous employer.) So I continue to be really happy where I am, and really happy with my decision. I don’t think my current ambitions extend much further up the corporate ladder for now, and I’m comfortable with that. I’m good at what I do. Some day, after K and I have had kids and after they’re older, perhaps – but for now I don’t think I’m willing to make the tradeoffs required. I work hard, but in the grand scheme, I’m not that important. That’s fine. Although I do still find it kind of funny that I’m considered a “subject matter expert”. I mean – it’s true, I know my stuff. So much so that my clients want me to come work for them, which is very flattering. But I guess sometimes I still feel like the 23-year old department assistant at the conservation organization I used to work for, who had to push to do anything that would contribute to my professional growth. Then I look in the mirror, and it’s quite clear that I’m the 33-year old consultant who has worked really hard for the last 10 years. That’s always a surreal experience.

I’m going to be able to transfer to my firm’s Rockville office, and K and will likely move out to that part of the county in the next few years. Having a new car and watching the mileage leap ever higher week after week has made us acutely aware that we spend WAY to much time driving around the Beltway. So, since our church and many, but not all, of our friends are out that way, it just makes sense. Even in our current location, Rockville will be a better commute for me. I’m disturbed sometimes at how suburban my life is becoming, and I’m having a hard time with that. So now I’m just trying to figure out a way for it to make sense for me – whatever that is. I feel like a hypocrite – someone who is indulging in an unsustainable lifestyle for the sake of convenience and becoming more and more a part of the problems I see.

I am very happy to say that my physical therapy worked quite well, and I’m back to running again. Nothing tremendously impressive yet, but I’m almost up to 2 miles, and my back is feeling good. I had been sitting at 1 mile, give or take, for a little while and not budging – or rather, not pushing myself. Telling myself that I couldn’t. So one day, I decided that I was going to do 1.5. And I even put it on Facebook, so you know I really meant it. (Mostly, I just wanted the accountability.) So I did. I thought I was going to die, but I did it – I pushed through the feeling that my lungs were collapsing as someone was stabbing me in the side, and I did it. It wasn’t pretty, but I felt quite a sense of accomplishment. Now, I have friends for whom that’s just their warm-up, so I realize that this isn’t an accomplishment that’s going to change the face of the running world. But I was happy for me.

I kept at 1.5 long enough to feel like I wasn’t going to die, and then started to build from there, some weeks adding on more than others. I’m up to 1.9, and will be very happy to go sailing past 2 in the next week or so. It’s still really, really hard for me. But since I’ve realized that it’s the only time my Inner Critic is nice to me, I keep up with it. It really gives me a sense of satisfaction that few other things do. Two days a week for now, out of deference to my back (which has been holding up really well!) and my knee (which is not holding up as well – so more PT for me). I’m working my way up to a 3 – 4 mile maintenance run, 3 – 4 days per week. It could be a while still, but I figure that if I can do what I’m doing and still be feeling good, then I can do that, too. Why not?

In my continuing quest for balance, I’m trying to narrow down the “extracurricular activities” in which I participate. So that has meant actually resigning from a couple areas in church where I’ve been serving for a long time, but where I’m not feeling like I need to be. I’m there because I can do it well, not because it’s something I love. It was a really hard decision, wracked with guilt because I’m a people-pleaser and easily overextend myself. I’m also trying to say no to things that I think will end up being one more thing on my plate that I won’t feel good about. I know that some people are really disappointed in me for this – think that I could be a leader and I’m just not doing it. This is also really hard for me – the feeling of guilt really sucks, feeling as though I’m letting people down. It’s an awful feeling, and it’s very easy for people to pile on the pressure. But the fact is that I’ve spent a lot of time saying “yes” to things that I didn’t really have time for, and I’m realizing just how burned out I am. I’m having a hard time mustering the energy to care about much of anything, and that bothers me because that’s not me. I was feeling like all the things I was doing, I was doing half-assed. And that’s not me, either. So, on the advice of a wise friend, I am taking the summer off from serving on Sunday mornings entirely, and will keep up with my two weekly areas of ministry, youth group and our small group. Once the fall rolls around, I’ll be doing youth services on the Sundays that Special K plays.

This past Sunday was the first day that K was playing and I wasn’t doing anything. So I dropped him off at church, and went to the gym for a nice, long morning swim. I love swimming, and it’s probably been at least 7 or 8 months since I last went. It was hard, because I haven’t gone for so long, but I was patient, got my breathing right again, and made it for a full mile – after thinking I would have to stop at less than a tenth. It was a slow mile, but it was a mile. I felt wonderful. I cleaned up, bought some t-shirts at Target on my way back (because I realized that I’d managed to get rid of almost all of mine in the last year or so, except for workout shirts – no idea how or why, but as the warm weather approaches, I’ve become acutely aware of their absence), and I went to church. And for the first time in a long time, I was able to really experience and enjoy church. It was awesome. I believe that serving and contributing is really important, and I think that most people opting to only show up at church and then go home – as if everything that needs to happen just happens by magic - is why those people who do volunteer get burned out so frequently. I do believe that this hurts our church, as it would hurt any community where more people take than give, so I’m happy to serve. But it was also really, really nice to feel like there was a little more balance to the equation for me. (And of course I helped to tear down and pack up after services.)

So, as much as this summer is already packed for us, I’m feeling happy that I’m making some progress. My brother and his family are coming to visit in a week, and I’m ridiculously excited about it – it’s been a year since we’ve seen them, and I really, really miss them all. I’m sure that I’ll just fall over with shock at how big the kids have gotten. We’re also going to be able to see some old friends that we’ve been trying to schedule a visit with for…well, forever. And as it turns out, after months of “well, that weekend doesn’t work for us, how about 6 months from now?”, J and I will see each other three times this summer – June, July, and August, which I’m really, really happy about. I’m also getting to go visit A in Portland (with J), and M and J are coming to visit from their respective homes in August. Lots and lots of things to celebrate. Life looks pretty different from how it was a year ago – and who knows what it will look like this time next year. I have a lot to be grateful for.

I don’t always know how I ended up where I am, but I know it’s part of a process and a picture bigger than I can see – I just hope I’m following the right signs, because I feel a little lost sometimes.