Tag: mood

The Wandering Hermit: One Step Sideways

   26 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: One Step Sideways

It’s already been a bit of a chaotic day.  Maybe that means the rest will be better.  Although, that isn’t to say my day has necessarily been bad.  It’s just been frustrating so far.  We had some heavy rains last night, so this morning everything was just soaking wet.  I could have walked, but it was so muddy that I decided to let things dry a bit.  So, I didn’t walk until 10am, and only did 1 mile then.  It was already getting hot out there.  I did do a few minutes of running on the porch, but that wasn’t really going anywhere (pun not intended), so I did my old route in front of the house to the neighbor’s driveway three times.  It was a good walk, but it has made me feel off a bit.  It was at the wrong time, it was the wrong place.  It didn’t feel like a step backward; it felt like a step to the side.  I felt like I was in a place I shouldn’t be all of the sudden.  I wanted my routine back!  I’ll have to do a walk this afternoon to make up for the missing mile, and maybe it is good that I had a difficult morning.  I was wanting to test out a split walking schedule.  Of course, I was still wanting my morning walk to be the enjoyable experience I expect it to be, but apparently we can’t have everything we want in life.

My VO2 Max number is still teasing me and just hovering below where I want it to be.  It has improved a lot this year, so I am trying to remain patient about that.  Continuing to do what I’m doing is improving everything.  My issues didn’t occur overnight; I shouldn’t expect to clear things up overnight either.  It takes time to undo a lifetime of stupid decisions.

[Walk #101]

The Wandering Hermit: People of the Dawn, People of the Dusk

   24 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: People of the Dawn, People of the Dusk

I woke up feeling just fantastic!  I like waking up with so much mental energy, but of course it tends to fade in a couple of hours and I sort of have to regain it later in the morning.  Still, it starts strong.

Last night, I thought I might wake up and drive somewhere to do my walk.  I keep wanting to do that, but I basically burst awake ready to get going and it seems a waste to not take advantage of that energy.  I’ll definitely have to give that a try soon.

I keep thinking about how some people are active early in the morning and others are active late into the night.  Every time I talk to one of my brothers, they’ve been up too late or have a list of things planned to do late into the night.  Dad was always up until 2 or 3am, waking up for his day around noon.  Grandma Fuchs was the same.  But then Mimi, Mom’s mom, would be sitting in the family room each morning before dawn—lights still off, just sipping her Folgers coffee and enjoying the quiet of her own company.  Mom was also an early riser and I guess I’ve just carried on that tradition.  Whether there is an innate difference between people or if we are just adaptable, I’m not sure.  All I do know is that I’ll take the dawn.  It makes me happy.

I’m wondering if I should be looking forward to simplicity after moving or if that is foolish.  Maybe I should be expecting more chaos; at least then it would be more difficult to be disappointed in the outcome.  I find it challenging to not be optimistic, something I’ve seen as a shortcoming.  Optimism isn’t cool.  It’s sometimes a hinderance.  But I would rather look forward to something good and believe it will happen than be down about everything all the time.  Bad stuff is going to happen whether I worry about it or not; it feels silly to go through anything once in my mind before it happens again in reality.  

[Walk #99]

The Wandering Hermit: Assessing Myself on a Thursday Morning

   20 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Assessing Myself on a Thursday Morning

I feel inspired this morning.  I didn’t get enough sleep, but I still woke up feeling great and ready to do all the things!  I’ve been focused heavily on poetry this month and it has me feeling very hyped for new projects, and I even got some writing in the other day.  I can always write.  But I have been busy with other things and so my writing has been pushed to the back until I’ve settled somewhere.  That is a trap I’ve fallen for before.  There is no settling.  Life is always chaotic in one way or another, but it is a choice to deny myself expression.  So, I resumed the writing I should never have paused.

My pace for the entire 3.39 mile walk this morning was under 20 minutes per mile!  That was incredible.  Once again, I did at times feel like I was power walking like a suburban mom on a Wednesday morning, but most of the walk felt fine.  And breathing never became an issue, but a brief exception when a car drove by and I was dealing with some dust for a few minutes.  Otherwise, my lungs seem the best they ever have.  My VO2 Max number has sort of plateaued, but I just need to keep doing what I am doing; hopefully it moves along soon.

I’m starting to get used to the slower rate of my recent weight loss.  I had been discouraged that it was slowing down, but when I started I knew that would happen.  It’s actually a good sign to not be dropping 3 to 5 pounds per week.  Weight loss at that rate was a sign that I was far too overweight.  I seem to be at 1 to 2 pounds per week, with an occasional outlier of 4 or 5.  If there’s something I could switch up to increase that, I’m just not all that interested in exploring it.  I like how I’m eating, I like my exercise routine, I’m drinking a lot of water, and most nights I’m sleeping well.  I don’t really mind this pace because everything is feeling so great.

[Walk #95]

The Wandering Hermit: The Day After a Lumpy Friday

   15 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: The Day After a Lumpy Friday

Yesterday started out strong, but I ended up not feeling my best most of the day.  I had chosen to not have any caffeine, and I think it just caused me to be a lump.  I barely did much at all after my morning walk.  I do need to remember that it is okay to have days that are intentionally not productive.  It helps everything settle.  I have plenty of days when nothing seems to get done, but those are typically days when I’m using the mental energy to try and stay busy, but this or that thing keeps getting in my way.

It was another warm morning—foreboding.  I was hoping to move some stuff today, but I’m worried about the heat.   I can’t stay too worried about the heat; we have to get everything out!  I’ll do my best to make the biggest impact I can today, even if that means not taking things to storage.  Brent is going to be here Wednesday?  I’m not exactly sure, but next week anyway and I’d like to have him feel better about the process.  I have thoughts on that, but they aren’t worth exploring.

I tried listening to a podcast this morning, this time The Stephanie Miller Show, something I have listened to at home for years… although not in a while just because I have so needed a break from the firehose of politics.  I enjoy the show, and it had its moments, but I didn’t like it as much for walking.  The most successful bits were story driven, and I think the podcast I choose to listen to in the morning should just be a story.  I think those who recommended audiobooks are on to something.  I haven’t yet tried them, but I will do that soon.  Tomorrow morning I’ll probably be back to music though.

[Walk #90]

The Wandering Hermit: Boundaries

   11 June 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Boundaries

mostly personal, not too terribly health focused

I need to learn how to set boundaries and demand that those boundaries are respected.  And it isn’t as though I don’t try.

I’ve been staring at the screen waiting for permission to feel the way I feel.  I’m not sure why…

I’m frustrated.  Yesterday was mentally exhausting, but maybe ultimately revealing.  I’m neither the person everyone wants me to be, nor am I interested in becoming that person.  Some folks have decided they know how I need to be, how I need to live, how I need to dress, who I need to spend my time with.  I am 44 years old.  I don’t understand where they found the audacity to act this way towards me.  And absolutely every time I express my concerns or try and set some sort of boundary, I’m shut down.  My feelings aren’t valid, or what I’ve said is entirely dismissed.  It’s so frustrating to feel such a huge lack of respect.

I’m trying to clear out my parents’ house.  I spent six months begging for help before I decided that I would need to do most everything myself.  But I couldn’t physically.  It was part of why I needed to lose weight, and after I started losing I started packing.  The house was full, the shed–a 20’x60’ enormous space was completely packed with stuff.  And I went through it, and I threw things out for months.  I went through every bit of the lives of several people, deciding what was important and what to get rid of.  It was an emotionally taxing event, and often genuinely a struggle.  In a lot of ways it was the nostalgia that was difficult, but mostly it was the solitary nature of it all.  It didn’t feel warm in the way reminiscing should.  It felt lonely because I was doing it alone.  I’ve been making a lot of decisions alone & neither of my brothers seems like they are interested in really dealing with some of this stuff.  One is in a hurry to sell everything and move on, which I understand.  We do need to do that.  I just think he does that at the expense of both my feelings and at the expense of my ability to keep some of my own things, which he has suggested I just get rid of.  And I’m not exactly sure why I should have to.  The other hasn’t been ready to deal with much of anything for a while now.  He does have some health issues, but he doesn’t really make much of an effort, seemingly waiting for someone to show up and do all of his living for him.  He is as dismissive, but also has a sense of entitlement about other people’s time, trying to employ guilt to get everyone to wait on him.  Guilt trips are a form of emotional manipulation, and are a sign of disfunction.  DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THEM.

I’m sure I will be fine in the end.  I’m sure everything will work out.  I’m looking forward to some new places to do my daily walks.  I’m looking forward to being near enough to a gym that I can go there for some consistency when it’s too hot or too cold outside.  I’m looking forward to creating my own life and not being held back by people who never put their own lives on hold for me.  I don’t owe them that either, and I really need to stop believing that I do.

[Walk #86]

The Wandering Hermit: I’m Just Irritable Today

   24 May 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: I’m Just Irritable Today

I slept in this morning, and it was just as well because my watch was not charged enough for a walk and that would have annoyed me if I had discovered that on my way out the door.  My biggest complaint about my Apple Watch is how quickly the battery dies.  And I suspect they could have done something about that; Justin’s smart watch, a random one from Amazon, needs charged once a week at most.  I don’t know how to improve the battery life, but I hate having some of the features on the watch that I find distracting, like messaging and email.  I don’t want that info; I want a tool to help me focus on exercise.  Those junk apps feel like an excuse to get advertising to me when I am able to get away from my phone.

My mood went from not great to terrible.  I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  Brent said sometimes he wakes up and wonders what he was dreaming about that pissed him off, and that’s pretty accurate to how I felt.  I was annoyed most of the day.

[Walk #67]

The Wandering Hermit: Haunted By Threats Of Migraines

   20 May 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Haunted By Threats Of Migraines

An aerobic exercise is so much more intense than my normal morning walks.  And while it does cause me to sweat a lot more, it does not increase my heart rate as much and I find that interesting.  

I woke up not feeling great; I had trouble sleeping through the chaotic weather, especially the hail that hit around 1 or 2.  I did manage to get in my daily exercise, but I felt like I was starting to get a migraine, so I decided to just chill out for the rest of the day.  I never did develop a full migraine, but I did feel like a lump all day.  Some days are just like that.

The Wandering Hermit: I Need This Day To Start Over

   16 May 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: I Need This Day To Start Over

Pouring rain this morning, so I waited until later to walk.  It was still a little too muddy, but it might rain on and off throughout the rest of today, so it is probably the best I was going to get.  After 20 minutes, which is my minimum, I was annoyed by the mud and stopped for the day.  If I do any additional exercise today, I’ll either stay on the porch or inside.  I’m feeling slightly less chipper than I have been feeling this week.  

I’m still low on food and have yet to do much about it, so this morning I made a pot of rice & kale.  I portioned that out into 200 calorie servings and had one with broccoli for breakfast.  It was pretty good, but I’d still like a broccoli break!  I guess I’ll just plan on going to get food tomorrow.  I need to just sit down and make the list.  I don’t usually struggle this much with it, but I also rely on broccoli so much that not I feel lost (even though I can just get green beans… and I know that).  

I got quite a bit of sleep last night.  Hopefully I can get plenty tonight as well.  I don’t like alternating sleepless nights.

My weight was up a lot this morning.  It’s not Monday, so the weight isn’t official, but it did surprise me how much weight can fluctuate.  Hopefully things are back in line by tomorrow morning.

[Walk #55]