However, thoughts of exercise have transformed me into a little lump of inertia. I still find it mentally challenging, if not downright impossible, to consider this exercising...
sit straight up, lift one knee up three or four inches off of chair, hold 3 seconds...
raise one or both arms as high as possible (one arm may help the other if needed)...
touch fingers to shoulders, palms towards you; turn palms down as you straighten elbows out to side...when in my mind I still see myself as this:
I really did run a 5K at the Wichita River Festival...in 1988.
I'm reaching the year where I have had arthritis for the same length of life as not. I sincerely cannot recall how it felt to be healthy, except for a magical week after Hannah was born and the hormones...or something...gave me a respite. I keenly recall bouncing out of bed one morning and thinking, "Is this how people feel all the time???" My joints felt like they'd been given a healthy shot of WD-40, my energy level encouraged me to do something and crisp clarity replaced the brain fog that was and still is otherwise my persistent parasitical companion.
Denial is a poor substitute for self-care, but it's become my tendency nevertheless. At some irrational level I have convinced myself that if I pretend like I'm healthy and act like I have a normal life, I don't have to face "it." I can still picture myself as the running girl you see here as long as I don't look in a mirror. However, if I sit down to do the range-of-motion exercises pictured above, suddenly I am face-to-face with what I have become and the truth that I will never again be running girl.
So, I've kept running in my mind, as if the mental running could jog me away from this body.
Please don't mistake this for self-pity. I used to be good friends with self-pity, got to know her pretty well, and this isn't she. I called it denial above. Whatever it is, it's about as useful as self-pity, but a little more dangerous. At least with self-pity I was looking directly at life--the negative side of life for sure--but still real life. This running denial is the opposite.
Hmmm. I've got it now. It is, in reality, laziness coupled with a lot of mental mumbo jumbo. All I REALLY need to do is get up...then sit down...and lift one knee up three or four inches off of chair, hold 3 seconds...
I'm reaching the year where I have had arthritis for the same length of life as not. I sincerely cannot recall how it felt to be healthy, except for a magical week after Hannah was born and the hormones...or something...gave me a respite. I keenly recall bouncing out of bed one morning and thinking, "Is this how people feel all the time???" My joints felt like they'd been given a healthy shot of WD-40, my energy level encouraged me to do something and crisp clarity replaced the brain fog that was and still is otherwise my persistent parasitical companion.
Denial is a poor substitute for self-care, but it's become my tendency nevertheless. At some irrational level I have convinced myself that if I pretend like I'm healthy and act like I have a normal life, I don't have to face "it." I can still picture myself as the running girl you see here as long as I don't look in a mirror. However, if I sit down to do the range-of-motion exercises pictured above, suddenly I am face-to-face with what I have become and the truth that I will never again be running girl.
So, I've kept running in my mind, as if the mental running could jog me away from this body.
Please don't mistake this for self-pity. I used to be good friends with self-pity, got to know her pretty well, and this isn't she. I called it denial above. Whatever it is, it's about as useful as self-pity, but a little more dangerous. At least with self-pity I was looking directly at life--the negative side of life for sure--but still real life. This running denial is the opposite.
Hmmm. I've got it now. It is, in reality, laziness coupled with a lot of mental mumbo jumbo. All I REALLY need to do is get up...then sit down...and lift one knee up three or four inches off of chair, hold 3 seconds...
4 comments:
Just so you know....when I run, I have this image of some sleek, well-trained, gazelle-looking athlete in my mind, but "it ain't even close, baby". I sound like a horse who has run the Kentucky Derby, and I run like a car that is on it's last leg in a Demo Derby. We all have aspirations, but reality is rarely close. Keep at it!! All that is required is effort and a small amount of forward progress (and not even that at all times!!)
Sheri :)
OK, "justdoitposterchild," (which I am NOT right now *smile*), what the heck are you doing up at 3:11 a.m.??? Thanks for the shot in the arm...well, maybe not for a shot, but you get what I mean. I don't know how to make this less "gushy", but... you are inspiring me! And I'm not quite buying it about the Derby car & horse--I read what your times are in your blog! Keep running!
--Ang
I remeber thinking after two years of fighting my knees that maybe I should just stay pregnant forever so I can have a break forever:)
Pregnant forever...that's a thought. As long as we're dreaming, the pregnant-forever idea would NOT include parenting the number of children that would involve. That definitely would NOT constitute a "break forever!"
Thanks for the comment!
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