Day 92

Gah - it has been a while since I posted. So I am now at 3 months - yeehaa! I think I had my biggest challenge on Friday. Just battling some low feelings/depression at the moment, I think a lot of it relates to pandemic fatigue which I don't think I am alone in. I just have to have faith that at SOME point life will return to semi-normal but sometimes it is hard to imagine when that will be. February is a month I loathe at the best of times - crazy work deadlines and crazy heat (something I really struggle with as I have major circulation issues - need to see a specialist about this BUT waiting for covid crisis to be slightly more under control this side). 

Also 3 Feb was my mom's birthday and 9 February is the anniversary of her death (she died 8 years ago from cancer and I was with her at home through the last traumatic and painful weeks). Not to mention my brother's birthday on 11th, Dad's birthday on 17th and my parent's wedding anniversary on 23rd. Just seems fraught - my father normally becomes maudlin around this time and starts saying "Mommy and I would have been married X years this month". I know I sound harsh but..... this is normally like fingernails on a blackboard for me. For a number of reasons:

1) My mom was NEVER "Mommy", loved her but she was a toughy and my brother and I never called her anything but "Mom"

2) He normally says it about 6-7 times during the month. I can cope with once, once is fine - I can sympathise but beyond that it gets hard.

3) He normally gets the number of years completely wrong - sigh!

4) MOST importantly - he has been happily married to someone else (luckily someone I love and adore) for 5 years now!! 

Father and brother are also passively-aggressively sparring with each other. Sigh - it is a habit of a lifetime and I think I see more clearly now how they both want to be victims so study each other's behavior for 'slights'  - without ever considering that their own behaviour might be contributing to the situation. I am trying my hardest to break a habit of a lifetime and not get dragged into the middle - despite phonecalls from both sides. 

On another note, I joined a Comeback Challenge through my EMS training gym in order to motivate myself to FINALLY reach my goals. Lockdown and last year's unhealthy habits led to me gaining weight which quite honestly should have FALLEN off when I stopped drinking. But, no - sadly this has not been the case and my body is clinging to its newfound fat like a toddler to a teddy bear. From the beginning of this year I have really worked hard to eat very healthily and I am exercising a lot....but the progress is SLOW. I think that may have to do with age but really it is highly frustrating. I weigh in once a week on the gym's fancy scale which (I don't know how?) measues muscle and fat so that there is no deluding oneself. On Friday my fat was unchanged and I had lost 500g of muscle - WTF???

This immediately led to a thought spiral of  - "Why the hell am I doing all this? It is not making any difference (merrily ignoring how much better I feel physically) and I really really want a LARGE glass of wine (or maybe 3) after all this February work/family/heat stress." Luckily, I managed to press on through and once I had eaten dinner I was fine. The next morning I was SO grateful. I just don't want to go back to Day One again. But this experience scared me as I felt very close, so I am upping my quitlit reading again. And doing my twice daily (first thing and last thing) instagram inspiration seeking - for some reason this always helps, the sober inspiration accounts I follow on there are incredible!!

So here's hoping that this week is a tad easier but even if not, I am closing in on a 100 days so that is inspiration enough to keep going.

Xx