At the pool

I'm still loving the pool and have settled into a routine of going every second day.  My fitness and muscle strength are steadily increasing, my lap count and length of continuous laps also steadily increasing.

Today I felt able to push it a little further.  It was tough going at the start, but by halfway through something different happened.  I found myself completely zoning out.  I think I went into a meditative state, just swimming stroke after stroke.  It was really good. 

I finished doing more laps than ever before and would have been quite happy to continue.  However, I am still finding that I am so tired afterwards that I knew it would be foolish to do even more at this stage.  And yes, a few hours later, I am tired.  I was almost asleep on the couch when the phone rang.  Good thing too.  I have work to do today.

I am so over being tired all the time and I absolute refuse to give up on this journey of increasing my fitness.  I want to be the person who can just go and go all day, a busy buzzy bee, with motivation and stamina!  Fortunately I can afford to be exhausted after a swim now that I am on school holidays.  The bookwork is done from home on my own time and I can still do it when I'm physically tired.  I wonder how long it will take before I can go for a swim and not feel so weary afterwards?

It's been over four weeks now since I started at to the pool and this week I have added walking on the alternate days.  I know that including the walking will tire me out even more, but eventually, surely (!) I will move past it into greater energy.  And I'm also continuing to choose to do more active jobs around the house and not putting them off till later.  I have a ways to go with that particular goal but I'm getting there with much better motivation than I have had for the last few months.

A friend of mine joined me for a swim a couple of weeks ago.  She is also trying to increase her fitness and is joining me for walks as well.  We are going to work up to doing some more strenuous bushwalking again.  I can't wait!!  It's wonderful to have days of exercising on my own as well as days sharing the activity.  I am feeling blessed!

I am grateful to be in the place at the moment.  It's been so long since I have been able to do anything else but deal with fertility and pregnancy.  I am taking advantage of this brief hiatus.  Hopefully it will increase my ability to deal with another pregnancy should that happen.  And also then help me better be able to cope with caring for a little one.

We see our fertility OB again in two weeks to discuss transferring Nemo in my next cycle.  The kinesioligist has said my body is ready as long as I stay centered and relaxed.  So that is my goal.  Increasing fitness and beginning a meditation practice again.  And after today, I can feel that the swimming is also a form of mediation!  Gotta love that!!

Love and Light
xxx

How my life is changing

I've said right from when it happened, that this has been a life changing experience for me.  At first I could simply feel it in myself.  I felt different.  This sounds silly to say at 44, but I've felt like I've grown up.  There is a wisdom and a life experience in me that wasn't there before.  There is a new knowledge about life and an emotional depth that I feel reflected in my eyes.  And as much as I'm distraught about how this happened and wish I could take it all back and still have my little girl growing within me, I like the change.

Now I am seeing the change in my daily life, in my actions, in the choices that I am making, and in the things that I am doing.  My world is changing.  What I want in it, who I want in it, and what I want to be doing with it.

For several years now, I have wished to be more like my mother in certain aspects.  My Mum is a get go woman.  She doesn't stop.  Always busy, always helping, always active.  And I have wanted to be more like that.  Now, I am starting to be.  I like it.  And Dave likes it!

Now, why does Dave like it?  Because I have started baking!  All of a sudden, I have this need to cook.  Now, just to remind you, I hate cooking.  Loathe it.  Dave cooks most of our dinners.  But every now and then I have gotten the urge to bake a cake or muffins with a packet mix.  Now I am baking from scratch.  Any day that I can.  If I'm not actually doing it, I am planning what I want to do next.  And loving it!  Now thats more like my mother.  And Dave is my taste tester.  And he loves this new me!

I'm also succeeding with my goal to be more active around the house.  Television viewing is diminishing.  And busy-ness is increasing.  And I am so happy for it.  The downside...  Remember all my clutter clearing?  Well I was just starting to feel on top of the house in that regard.  Now, there is a whole new level going on!  And the house feels crazy again.  There is a new level of activity in the kitchen that needs organising - with rearranging cupboards, and organise recipe folders to allow for the new baking me.  And there is just more happening everywhere that needs clarifying and organising and finding the right why of doing things. 

So my clutter cleared organised head has found a new deeper level of existence that needs sorting out.  It's a wonderful metaphor and is so clearly a reflection of the deeper level of me that is emerging.  My therapist describes it as peeling away the layers of the onion and discovering and making sense of the real me.

It's a good thing and I so happy for it. 

But at the moment it is clouded in a high level of anxiety.  Anxiety and being even just a little bit unorganised, don't work together for me.

Dave leaves on a work trip on Friday for over a week.  I am not coping without him at the moment.  The moment he leaves my anxiety level rockets.  My kineisologist saw it in my body in my last session.  That at the moment, my need for nuturing is high.  That I need supportive friends and family around me.  And I'm just not coping without him.

I had resolved the problem.  I was spending a few nights in the country with one of my bridesmaids.  I used to do it regularly before I met Dave.  It was the perfect solution.  However, Kiara the cat, needed surgery yesterday.  She is fine and recovering well but I can't leave her.  Raphael is hissing at her and the two of them need to be managed.  I can't leave them alone and there is noone else to look after them.

So, I'm scared about Friday and next week.  I don't know how I will be.  The anxiety I feel over the cats is simply adding to it.  Even before he has gone, I'm not coping.

I will ask Mum to come over.  She may even spend a couple of nights.  That will help.  And I will focus on the wonderful changes that are going on in my life.  I will continue to chip at the organisation jobs that I have.  I will continue to bake. 

I am grateful that with the way I am feeling I haven't turned to my usual coping behaviours.  I am still leading my new life, albeit somewhat subdued and shut in.