Who am I now?

I have really fallen off the wagon blogging wise, haven’t I? I guess it’s mirroring everything else in my life!

I spent this weekend trying to abide by my new “rules for living”. To live in the moment, to not obsess about WHEN we “should” eat lunch and dinner. To not place demands on doing exercise just for the sake of doing it. Boy, this is truly a process. I don’t know how many times over the short weekend I had to actively - actively - try stop myself from obsessive thoughts.

I’ll give you an example. On Saturday, a local village was having its village wide rummage sales. Marc and I aren’t big rummage sale people, but when a village is having multiple sales at once, we sometimes hit those to see if we can get any deals.

We rode our bikes and stopped at sales along the way. It ended up being almost 40 miles. We were partway through the ride and I kept thinking that we were going to be home late for lunch. I was a little hungry, but I was fine. But the thought that we always eat at noon and it was going to be closer to 1:30 - OH NO! Does this sound unbelievably nutso to you guys? Because it kind of feels that way!

We followed this up with another 40 mile ride on Sunday. I was happy to get in the miles as we have a bike race next Saturday. And it was really challenging for me to ride that distance 2 days in a row. Good training! Although my quads were about done for 20 miles in the second day.

As we were riding, though, I was thinking about identity. I feel less and less like a runner. It’s not that I’m not running, it’s just that I’m not running very fast or very far. And I’m doing a lot of my running on the treadmill. So that in my mind makes me someone who runs - not a runner.

The new Jen that made her appearance with weight loss went hand and hand with being a runner. To getting out there and running no matter what. I ran when it was so cold that I got back to work and had to have security open the door for me because I couldn’t get my hand to work. I ran in the blazing heat where I almost couldn’t catch my breath. I got up on Sundays and even if it was the last thing on earth I wanted to do, I ran at least 13 miles. And now the thought of challenging myself like that seems foreign and exhausting.  Was it obsessive?  Probably.  Unhealthy – maybe some.  But I was relatively THIN. 

Is there a middle ground? Can I be fit and healthy and not obese without obsessing constantly over food and exercise? It feels like me just being a normal human is not within my grasp.

I had one small victory on Sunday. It has been so oppressively hot that we once again took the dogs to the beach for a short time late in the day. I was pretty successful in playing with the dogs and relaxing and not worrying about every little thing.

Tomorrow we take Chakotay for his last appointment at Cornell which will then mean the trial is over. Then what? The future scares me...