This morning I walked for 27 minutes without crying in pain. In fact, I have not been crying on my morning walks for a few days now, although it took almost two weeks of regular strolls to get to this point. It’s my back muscles that hurt — underused and out of shape, barely able to keep me vertical for extended periods of time. Given that I have a “bad” back, I have to be careful. Walking is the best I can do without living next to a pool, and I treat it like physical therapy. Like physical therapy, it’s awful to do but wonderful once it’s done.
Mind you, I’m clearing just over 2mph on these walks.
This is reflective of my life in general right now. I think my body has become my own metaphor: out of shape, in pain, filled with regret, and starting from scratch.
“Scratch” is that line on the ground the race starts from. It’s never the first line you cross, though, it’s just one more, and for those of us who have had to rebuild our lives more than once (or twice, or…) it’s only remarkable as just another line to cross. Another scratch. Another race. Another beginning, in a long line of them.
It’s stereotypical to start trying to improve my fitness at the end of the year, bracing for the season of New Year’s resolutions. This is major scratch in the ground for me, though, and not idle hope for an improved self.
2015 was a very stressful year, personally and at work. Unlike many other stressful years I’ve had, it was not marked by being particularly traumatic which I’m grateful for. For most of the year, work was painfully stressful with instability and petty politics and low morale. On top of that were panic attacks and fractured sleeping and, eventually, therapy. Worst of all, I stopped writing.
Stopped.
Writing.
Like a canary in a coal mine, the act of writing (or not writing) reflects my mental state. Late in 2014, some bumps in the road made me stumble, and then I just stopped. No fanfic, few blog posts, no original fiction. I haven’t updated this blog since April, in fact. This wasn’t writer’s block — I had plenty I wanted to write, needed to say — it was a war of attrition with my PTSD. I consider 2015 as the year where past traumas came to roost.
My fitness level plummeted as I stopped working out in whole. My health, ironically, is great overall. My fitness, though, has been on a downward slide since I got whooping cough in 2012. Three years have passed, but the repercussions of such a major illness are long-lasting — something I know intellectually is common and true, but still surprises me in practice. I made minor gains in 2014, but then the PTSD surfaced and, well, in 2015 I suffered the most random health problems I have had in years (colds, back spasms, UTIs, allergies). And, apparently, some minor muscle atrophy.
So what changed? Why the walking, writing this post? Why now? What is different? Me, of course. Lexapro helped dial down the panic and anxiety, allowing me to get restful sleep (thank you, modern medicine!). Therapy has helped me identify what bubbled up to the top of the murk I know as PTSD. I’m not ready to share those revelations yet (if ever) but suffice to say: not easy to acknowledge, harder to confront.
But I am doing that. 2014 was a year of contentment as I adjusted to the new job and decided on the next stages of my life. 2015 was a null year, in a lot of ways (writing and fitness), but I think in the long run a necessary “time out” to face my fears, my damage, and my dreams.
I’m walking every day. I wrote this blog post. I think, on the whole, those are very good signs.