Today's disjointed run left me feeling frustrated and wondering if I should be trying to do this right now. I'm not doubting my physical ability... I'm simply questioning whether I should be committing this kind of time to a personal goal when there seem to be a million other things I should be doing instead. I fully acknowledged that this process would take about a year, assuming my body could withstand the beating and evade injury, but I never bothered to consider the amount of time this would require out of that twelve month period.
I'm guessing that, looking at today's time, you're wondering why in the world I'm so overwhelmed by 30 minutes. If that's an issue, I'm seriously going to have a problem when I start running 10-12 miles or, even worse, 15-20 miles. But it's not really the half hour that's a problem. Add another 15 minutes beforehand to stretch and what should be at least another 20 afterward for more stretching. Then, assuming I have anywhere else to be, there's a shower that really should follow. Of course, showering is part of my normal day, but isn't necessarily part of my afternoon. Any time I have somewhere to take my son, I wake up early and shower before he gets out of bed. Now, I have to fit stretching, running, stretching and showering into his sometimes too-short nap time.
Take today, for instance. The first 20 minutes of my run I spend making a mental list of all of the things I want to do this afternoon. I need to finish my run, have lunch, take a shower, get dinner started (my first homemade dinner in some time), get a few emails out and, as if there would be enough time left after that, I'd love to read a little. After 2 miles on the treadmill, my son woke up from his nap. Being that I found a way to multi-task and did my stretching while we played on the floor before his nap time, this meant that he'd only be asleep for 20 minutes... only about 2 hours shorter than his nap might normally be. I gave him a minute hoping he'd go right back to sleep, but no luck. So, I run upstairs to calm him down, which takes a good ten minutes to do, in just enough time for the dogs to bark at the invisible people that obviously taunt them from the front door, and the whole process begins again. By the time I get back downstairs to finish my run, it's been at least 15 minutes. Now I'm wondering... should I start over? Clearly that would be putting too many miles on these legs of mine. Should I just call it a day? Then I would just feel like a quitter. But will he stay asleep long enough for me to finish? There was no way to know for sure, but certainly I was going to try.
This left my last mile to reconsider my list of things I had wanted to accomplish and think about how to re-order them since I doubted there was any chance of getting all of them done. I finished my run and stretched a little less than I probably should have, then warmed up my leftover chinese while I sent out my emails. I did allow myself a break long enough to finish my lunch on the couch, but before I finished, my son was once again awake... still about an hour short of his usual nap time.
I suddenly felt very overwhelmed by all of the things I'd love to be accomplishing at this point in my life. With my husband's schooling taking so much of his time, I would love to say I've been able to take the reins and do all of the things he hasn't had time for. But all I've managed in the last three weeks is to cook one meal and wipe down a few counter tops. The grass could use some serious attention and I don't want to be the kind of wife and mother that serves her family fast food and frozen dinners every night. I can't help but feel that my hobbies are starting to take up all of the time I should be devoting to my family. Between running, reading for my book club (that, for some stupid reason, I thought would be a good thing to start earlier this year) and trying to keep up with my initial goal for the year of reading one non-fiction book every month, I can't seem to get anything else done.
I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling inundated by all of the things I need and want to do in the very little time I seem to have. I'm just beginning to wonder if this is really what I should be doing right now...
No comments:
Post a Comment