Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Still Competing ... Sort Of ...

Today I thought back to when I first started this little self-competition and I am astonished at how quickly I lost track of that because of my pregnancy. I've been feeling awful and because of that very real awfulness, I've sort of put my "training" on hold. After all, when you spend the morning throwing up in the general direction of your feet you notice how aged they look, but you don't really feel in any shape to do anything about it. Feeling completely exhausted due to hormones and interrupted sleep doesn't exactly motivate a woman to work out either, especially when said woman barely has time between sleeping and vomiting to get last night's dishes cleaned and cook tonight's dinner, thereby wrecking the kitchen all over again.

But that doesn't mean the competition is over ... it just means that now instead of it being the Olympics of Brandi, it's more like ... the Special Olympics of Brandi. I'm not trying to lose weight, but I'm trying to eat right and get enough rest. Hopefully, soon I will get a grip on the elusive Energy again and I can get my house back in order the way I like it, then focus on becoming a stronger, fitter, more baby-ready me.

And really? At this point that's my only "training" plan for the immediate future. Just trying to be rested and meet the nutritional needs of my body while still maintaining my family and home is enough for right now, and part of the competition meant pampering myself anyway, right? So that includes being willing to take a break instead of wearing myself too thin, resting when I need it even though all of our jackets are in the recliner instead of the closet, and turning the light off in the kitchen after I sweep, even though I know a good mopping is in order.

Because taking care of myself counts in the pampering way too. And while I remind myself that this is a step-by-step process even during the pregnancy, I am willing to give myself a break in light of all the ways I've been feeling icky. Then again, in one of my earliest posts on this, I considered the idea that the reason this concept stood out so much to me was that God was trying to tell me something. Maybe He was. Maybe He was preparing me mentally for the idea of trying to slow down, trying to rest more and stress less. Because now that I'm pregnant, slowing down isn't a choice and stressing about it won't speed me back up again. I believe that God has provided for me amazingly throughout my life, and maybe this was one of those times when He was there and He knew what was coming and just what I needed to get me through it.

So the competition continues, and I'm glad that I'm the only contestant. This could take a while, but I'm ready to spend the time on me, and looking forward to an amazing journey of self.

As a part of the whole taking-better-care-of-me concept, I quit babysitting for the "friend" that I'd been babysitting for, and it turns out that I was right to do that. I had been tossing the idea of quitting around in my head for a while, but had shied away from it because I really felt bad for FashionMommy since she was a single mom and terrified of all the changes in her previously party-girl lifestyle. However, this girl didn't seem like she was all that willing to make the changes in her life that a baby requires (in my jack-ass-on-a-high-horse opinion), and I wasn't sure she was someone I wanted to be spending much time with. At eight months pregnant, she went to a party for a guy friend's birthday, and posted MySpace pictures of the birthday guy passed out on the ground ... on the driveway ... next to his motorcycle. And it didn't improve much once the baby came. She talked the talk all day long, loved the baby and wanted to raise her in church, wanted to leave the party life and chill out, enjoy being a mommy.

But didn't have much problem leaving the baby overnight at only a few weeks old so she could go spend part of the weekend at the above-mentioned party boy's party house on Norris Lake. Now, I give her kudos for not taking the baby, but to me that doesn't look like someone ready to give up the party life, and I just didn't feel like I wanted her influence on my own life. So when I started bleeding at around six or seven weeks, I rushed to the doctor and by the end of that appointment I knew that my time working for this girl/woman was over. I quit that day, and I feel that I was right in stopping working for her. When she came that day to get FashionBaby's things, I told her to keep in touch, let me know how things were going, and if there was anything I could do for her. And part of that was politeness, but the majority of the sentiment was me still feeling bad for a party girl who had had her life unexpectedly turned upside down. I really believe that she wanted to make the right changes, and I sort of wanted to get her under my wing where she'd actually have a friend who had kids and had the lifestyle she said she wanted. I would have been the only one.

But maybe she didn't want the changes in her life as much as she said she did, and maybe she didn't admire my life or my family as much as she said either. I never heard from her again, not "hey how you doin' did the bleeding stop are you okay" or anything. I didn't even hear from her offering to pay me the hundred bucks she owed me for the two weeks I babysat FashionBaby without pay. To her credit she did give me the carseat/stroller combo she had given me for FashionBaby ... but still. Clearly the friendship was one-sided.

But I digress, and my point in all that was that slowing down was good for me in a lot of ways. It stopped me from overtaxing myself physically with babysitting while pregnant, sick and exhausted. And it stopped me from overtaxing myself mentally, worrying over FashionBaby's somewhat immature FashionMommy who was already feeling "lonely", worrying over the men surely to enter and leave this child's life in an endless stream, and worrying over when FashionMommy would get her head out of her butt and grow up. I still pray for them both, and I do wish the best for them as well ... but I just couldn't handle the emotional leaching that was going on. Even without watching the baby, I also mentioned once that instead of trying to just beat myself, I felt like I was up against "a bear. A big one. With friends. And they are all angry."

Now if I could just get a confession from whatever jerk thought it would be funny to give all the imaginary bears weapons ...