I love sloshing through puddles, the wind so cold on your face that it burns, and unable to tell whether your nose is runny or it’s just the rain.
I love when it’s cold enough to wear a jacket, and your feet squish inside your shoes, and you have to wear a hat not for the sun, but to shield your face from the rain.
I love it when the perfect song comes onto your iPod as the weather grows hairier, even though listening to your iPod in the rain might not be the best idea.
I love running in the rain.
It’s just been such a long time.
I feel like a massive lump at the moment. I wish it wasn’t dark outside because I’m desperate to go for a run in the rain… but not desperate enough to go right now. In the morning, perhaps. I just wish I hadn’t let up on running in the first place, and I could go out there knowing that I could manage 5k without too much trouble. I might cover 3k tomorrow… doing intervals. I really miss knowing I’m fit. I miss being able to call myself a runner, and knowing that I could actually run away from something if I had to. I’m so sick of doubting my ability to stick to a program… it’s holding me back from even starting! Like tomorrow… do I just get out there and see how far I can go for until it gets too hard? Do I go in with a plan so I know that it’s okay to stop at some point? What do I do?
Sadly, if I hadn’t stopped running after City to Surf last year, I’m pretty sure I’d be covering some awesome distances by now. Instead, I spend more time talking myself out of it than I would ever spend actually doing it… and I’ve pretty much sat on my butt for most of this year, and I’m feeling it. Where is my super awesome fitness nut personality? Where is the girl who lifts many weights and punches invisible enemies and stretches in bizarre positions? Where is the girl who runs or swims or at least walks most days of the week?
The rubbish part of this is that I know that the second I get into a regular routine, I’ll be privileging my exercise regime over everything else. I will go to work late so I can make that 9.30am yoga class. I will go to the busy 6pm Pump class so I can go with friends. I’ll go for a swim in the middle of my working day, just because it’s the best time to go to ensure the warmest weather (I love to swim in the outdoor pool in the middle of winter, you see) and an empty lane. But right now I sit here whinging to myself and berating myself for being such a loafer. I write up these amazing schedules for exercise, and suddenly realise that if I run 4x a week and swim 3x a week and cycle to and from work and go to three yoga or Balance classes a week and go to Pump three times a week, I’ll be spending more time at the gym than I do in bed and that’s not right. But I’m so, so all-or-nothing with this, like I am with most things. Right now I’m nothing, but who knows – by this time next week, I might be all, and I’ll feel great and all my problems will be solved and there will be world peace and no poverty or hunger, etc. etc.
Yes. I know. I over-think these things.
I don’t even know what the solution is here. I don’t know why I bothered writing all that; perhaps I’m just practicising hupomnemata so that when I slide back into this non-exercise rut in six months time (after I’ve got my mojo back and subsequently lost it again, as will inevitably happen), I can look back over this and go Oh yeh! Don’t worry Erin, this happens all the time! It will be okay! Just reflect and learn from your past experiences and get on with life. Maybe it’s time to be ruthless and just stop making excuses and get back into a routine that involves exercising and sticking to a study plan and doing my dishes each night and generally not letting the dominant lazy bitch side of my personality take over completely, as it is in danger of doing.
I think I’m scared. I’ve always been a bit… well, messy. Messy in regards to care-factor and messy in regards to life and messy in regards to general demeanour, if that even makes sense. What happens when I become Little Miss Switched On and I start keeping everything in life on track? What do I fall back on when one of the things I define myself by (yes — I do identify as this lazy, messy, carefree soul…) is removed and replaced? What do I identify as then – the girl who used to have her own bizarre organisational style and who used to talk about changing her life but never did… until she did? Is it even right to identify like this?
I’ve somehow moved on from talking about fitness-issues here to talking about life issues, but they’re all related, they all go in the same basket. I don’t know about other people, but I find that managing all the aspects of my life is a testing and delicate undertaking; if just one thing is off, everything else turns to shit. When I drink too much, I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I eat more because my days tend to go for 20+ hours, and when I eat more I feel like crap, and when I feel like crap I just want to lie in bed all day and ignore the world rather than studying, and because I’m not studying I make plans to go out and drink…
You see. Viscious cycles and what not. I’m sure it happens to everyone. I like to think I’m doing a good job of balancing everything at the moment, but I’m not, akshully. I neglected my thesis and conference paper to teach, and I neglected exercise to teach, and Rhys being away has thrown my cooking/cleaning/general life skills into disarray. Nothing’s quite been right for the past few months. I’m giving more time back to my own research finally, but oh my gosh, I need like one more month before my conference (as in, one more month on top of the six weeks I’ve got as it is). I need more money. I need more time in my day. I need someone to prod me into action… someone carrying a cattle prod or something, a little servant who promises to shock me each time I mess about or make excuses rather than doing what I should be doing.
I have a feeling that I might be completely incapable of being an adult, and thus that it is irresponsible to expect me to behave like one. Or perhaps that’s what adulthood is: realising that you can’t actually do it all, and you maybe never will, but the juggling act teaches you a hell of a lot about how you might make the right decisions (or learn from the wrong ones).
Did I just work out the meaning of life?
