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Sometimes, I don’t feel like I can handle much of anything.

Some days, you’re just begging for the pendulum to rest.

While I continue searching for the sun, and putting behind me a year of inconsistencies, I am feeling feeble about my weight loss journey. Part of me is elated that I’m nearing to cross the 60lbs lost threshold. The other is my lack of want to do anything meaningful that is causing the feat to lose its shine.

It stems from a year of depression and hitting a wall last week that is causing turmoil. I partially wish to write to my friends and family not to give up on me as I decline their calls in favour of text messages. There’s simply nothing new to talk about. And I don’t really have the time time to drone on in calls that could be summed in messages. I used to be a huge phone person. Now, if it can be said in text or email, that’s my preferred mode of communication.

It’s probably because my communication starts and ends with my relationship that is consistently teetering on derailment every few days. As the threat of another year of staying indoors (no festivals, concerts or shows in sight) looms, he and I are nearing the pique of impossible problems. While he is someone who likes to hold it in and process internally, I am an erupting volcano of emotions that results in communication breakdown and resentment. For lack of better explanation, I can’t seem to know when to shut up and he can’t seem to figure out when to speak up. I over analyze, and he simplifies. I get worked up, and he shuts down. I put it all out in the world to read and see and hear, and he keeps it under lock and key. How do the best relationships make it twenty, forty, sixty years? And what is it about being stuck in the throes of stress and hardship that is killing his and my want to continue rowing through this storm in the same boat together?

Whether or not Jan and I survive the hurricane remains to be seen. Not for being devoid of love or adoration. But for the changing of our persons over the year that changed us all. Are we the same people who came into this together before COVID struck? And will we be stronger when it’s over, or just two weather-worn lost lovers, mourning what could have been? I suppose time will tell.

As for the week itself, I’ve found myself cautiously optimistic that I will be going home to see my family at the end of the month as their respective areas have been officially moved out of red zones. I’m also anxious for my doctor’s appointment. And despite the new CPAP mask I received not actually making things better, I am swapping it out for something new.

What’s become socially isolating is the hunger games that has become each respective member of our family. While we lion tame the two of us, the kids are each feeling their own bitterness and resentment of what the lockdown and pandemic has become for each of them in their lives. The lack of social integration (don’t pretend that masks at school are in some way making up for the void of playdates, sleepovers et al.) And with starting high school, or navigating a life back from major surgery (Alex’ scoliosis repair recovery is going well. Arduous, but well), or being laid off from work and figuring out how to go back (Colby went back for his first shift last night in two months), each of the kids are feeling the pressure just like we are, in their own ways. And with the two of us attempting to find our footing – whether together or apart – life can sometimes feel exceedingly messy.

Back to the weight loss portion. I feel, again, without this routine – this healthy eating, getting down to a smaller size, exercising every day – I don’t know where I’d be today. And I don’t know where I’d be tomorrow. It’s the one shred of my identity that has been the constant. And while so much of who I am seems to be slipping away, this one piece is beating like a heart and pulsating over the rest of my unknown.

I logged a run outdoors this past weekend for the first time since last fall. The crisp air, ducking around mushy mud and pockets of snow; finding myself speeding up and slowing down, my breathless panting. It was like a soothing dream come to rest again over me. I never took myself for a runner. But being outside where the sun could shoot its rays, and I didn’t have to rely on the drumming hum of the treadmill to soothe my aching soul – well, it’s tough to sum how incredible it felt to be outside. I felt alive. For the first time in a very, very long time.

And now a fork in the road. With the days getting longer, the sadness getting stronger, the desire to get somewhere other than here, I find myself asking – what is next? Who are you? Who have you become? What do you want? What do you need? Who do you want to be? And who are you now? This existential crisis is alerting me that my thirties are nearing an end. My final trip around the sphere before I welcome a new decade next year. Will I be ready? Will I have taken everything I learned from this year and be stronger, or look for the flags and avoid?

Regardless, I feel like each of us will walk away from this with a new perspective on ourselves. Either stoic in the nostalgia of what a year locked down meant for our mental well-being, or grateful that we endured the brink of disaster and came back with a better understanding of how to care for our fellow human. Our partners. Our kids. Our families. Our colleagues.

Maybe it’s both.

Today, I couldn’t handle the truth. I couldn’t handle being told that I have become bitter and resentful. And that I am unlikable. Maybe all these things are true. Maybe a jog in the sun is going to help alleviate what the worst of me has bubbled to the surface. Maybe I need to seek happy somewhere else. But whatever else happens, whenever I get to where I’m going, I hope that I take the truth with me. Whether I can handle it, or not.

This week, I whittled down to 171, with my firm commitment not to eat carbs (which I gave up for Lent!) I conquered acorn squash. And challenged my Health Care group to posting their meals daily.

I’m still running every day, be it treadmill or otherwise. And, yes, I am still posting to that site in my knickers, if you’d like to see my progress. (DM me for the link.)

This week’s old school jam:

Follow my Health Care Spotify Work out Playlist, and add your own!

I recreated this photo from last summer. Same shorts. Same tank.

New girl.

You can if you want to

c ★