Elsewhere…

I have been using my words in other places lately, but far be it from me to be reticent here on my little soapbox.

It’s almost time for vacation and to quote my lovely husband, “I can’t possibly check out at work, so I’m checking out with workouts.”  To be fair, I spent the greater part of this week with a cold, so I had an excuse for a while, but this weekend I’ve spent in my sweats instead of my spandex even though I feel most of the way better.  I. just. can’t. right. now.

There are two thoughts on my mind.  First, my brain is just elsewhere besides running, biking, and swimming right now, and it’s taking a lot of my mental effort and enthusiasm right now.  It’s all good.  I’m starting to find my confidence and stride in some things that felt utterly over my head before, and once I adequately conquer these things, I know it will all come back around.  Ten days away from everything should shake loose some cobwebs.

Second, if you’ve met me, you might know I have a propensity for overdoing it – *it* being anything and everything under the sun.  I’ve found some success in sport lately by not doing a whole lot of sport.  When I do venture out I’ve been doing amazing things – I kept up with people at the last brick workout who usually beat the crap out of me.  I felt a little sheepish about my bike fitness until I knocked out my best FTP test (181W) ever last weekend.  I PR’d my bench press Monday (105#).  It feels like while I’m doing a whole lot of nothing, whatever I’m doing is beneficial.  It’s really weird but, okay, let’s go with it.

I mean, I know I can’t do this forever, but as they say, stress is stress is stress and the last thing I want to do is go over the edge right now because I pushed myself too hard in too many areas.  Been there, done that, don’t want to go back and do it again.

Besides work, which is definitely a thing but not a thing I generally talk about here, I’ve dug deep into various writing projects.  I’ve actually found it very relaxing lately.  I’ve been practicing writing fiction for the first time in many, many, many years by delving into the backstory of my Dungeons and Dragons character.  I’ve been writing a recap of our adventures in a very ridiculous, overly flowery style of prose.  It’s been crazy fun to write over the top drama, looking up every third word on thesaurus.com and picking the most esoteric and enigmatic one (see what I did there?). 

I happened to connect with someone, incidentally, commiserating on the fact that we both struggle with asking for help, someone who’s writing I really respect.  I had a moment of gushing vulnerability regarding my fears and insecurities about my book draft and the whole process.  She encouraged me to send it over and I found at once ALL my old inclinations.  I almost just said no, I wasn’t ready yet.  I gave a multitude of excuses about how rough it was and how I didn’t want to waste her time.  Yet, after all that, she still wanted to read it.  

I’ve given myself until I leave on vacation to get my shit together.  And then, instead of scrambling to actually do something about that, I wrote and edited thirteen pages of my D&D character’s backstory.  I felt compelled to finish it before I could even open my book draft.  Talk about self-sabotaging tendencies…

The happy end to this story is that I did indeed open the draft a few nights ago, and I’m through a first editing pass of the intro and the first chapter.  I’m glad I found my writing voice, but man, it’s rough to go back and revise stuff I penned before that.  There’s no way I will be able to get through the entire book before I leave (yes, the irony of me wasting time here is not lost on me, but I need to decompress a little right now).  However, I figure delivering the first few chapters in a slightly-less-than embarrassing state will at least show the beginnings of my capabilities. 

I’m excited, not so much because I believe in my draft yet, but that I believe enough in myself to take this first step.  That’s been prevalent so far this year in my choices and actions, and I’m super stoked to see where it leads.

However, while performing all these terrifying feats is invigorating, it is also kind of exhausting.  I’m looking forward to just letting it all go for a while, and I hope that when I transition from life to vacation life, I can do just that.