“It’s about meeting life where you are.”

“Not beating it.”

“Yes!!!”

I get it; I just don’t get it.

The struggle to balance what needs to be done, what feels like needs to be done, and what I want to do has been kicking my tail. And the anxiety that goes with it has been excessive. I wake in a panic, my heart races all night, and the many things I worry about come at me full force. Not waves or even tumbles of thoughts. Nope, a barrage of thoughts smack me until I’m too battered to try to go back to sleep.

What practices should I schedule for the 4U soccer kids?! What if I can’t get enough kids for the 14U and 12U teams? What if I don’t pass my certification test? Did I forget to send that email? How can I help my son improve in cross-country and build confidence? Which gym should I try to work out of since I need space for young athletes? Am I an imposter? Can I actually do this? Am I gaining weight? Why? How can I maintain the level of activity I want when I keep getting injured and am constantly sick? When am I going to get a chance to work with those athletes? I’m busy all the time. When am I going to get the dog out for playdates? When am I going to get a chance to go hiking, camping, and kayaking? I can barely get the bare minimum done. I’m letting the dog down as well as myself. What should I do about Flutter for vacation? Should we bring her or try to board her? Is my cat dying? She seems sick. What vet should I take her to now that ours is gone?

I wake all night and ruminate on each of these various things and more, and in the meantime, I am trying to figure out how to fit in studying for a personal training certification exam, starting a new career, maintaining my current job, wanting to hike or run or kayak, wanting to mountain bike, wanting to backpack or go camping, wanting to train different athletes, making time for the gym for myself, spending quality time with my family, taking care of the house and getting chores done, reading, researching, running a soccer league. There isn’t enough time! And the NEEDS are taking over.

All of these things are good, great even, but the hole I find myself in is that I’m trying to do it all. Not only am I trying to do it all, but I’m trying to do it all 100%. There’s nothing wrong with doing those things really well or to the best of my ability, but the problem is that I am not living life this way. I’m even viewing the fun/recreational things as goals or items to check off a list. I am missing the fun in them. I’m trying to conquer life, beat it at its own game. Life doesn’t work this way.

I’m finally aware that you can’t beat life. The minute I start to think “I’ve got this thing in the bag,” I end up sick, injured, or with something else on my plate. I always thought I thrived by staying busy, but I know now that it beats me up and wears me down. I’m trying to 100% everything, but instead I’m becoming 5% of a person and not even enjoying the things I used to enjoy.

In fact, I get tired, depressed, paralyzed by “too much,” and fall off the wagon of mental and physical health.

Truthfully, that’s where I am now. I need to study. I can’t. I want to go on adventures. I’m tired or feel guilty. I don’t necessarily actively think about self-harm or suicide, but the recent exhaustion and low mood put those thoughts in my mind much more often than feels tolerable.

I’m trying to figure out how to live, and I’m pretty sure I am doing it wrong. How do I slow down, balance things, and feel less anxious about all of it? I don’t know yet. Maybe I need to create a schedule to nail down “needs” and then give myself structured chunks of time that I specify what I want to do. No sitting around trying to decide in a paralyzed state while I see all of the things around me that need to get done (clean the bathroom, do the laundry, brush the cat, clean out the refrigerator, mow the lawn, etc.). No, now it’s on the schedule and decided for me now. If I don’t feel like kayaking when it is on the schedule, I don’t absolutely need to. It’s just there if I want to. No more filling gaps because the gaps are there. This is intentional. Some are boxes to check, but some are options.

Sitting down to write this is a start for me. I haven’t written in a while because there were just “more important,” “more pressing” things. I have to deal with the anxiety of not doing something else…and the guilt. But I NEED to practice that and get used to it.

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One last update. Sex therapy. I still feel very unsure. Maybe partly because I don’t yet understand what we are doing or where we are headed. One week, we talk about something somewhat relevant that we can come back to; the next week, when I expect to come back to it, we talk about chores or something equally irrelevant to what I consider the point of this therapy to be. Talking about chores is beating a dead horse as far as I am concerned. We have explored every which way to try to make life easier amid our family’s chaos. I don’t want that to be our path, but I don’t know what we are actually supposed to be doing, so I just follow the therapist’s lead.

It’s not that we don’t have things to discuss. We do. But I also still feel like more of what I am experiencing is trauma-related…and that discussion of past experience would better help the situation. I’m spinning my own tires trying to figure out how to move forward, but I am terrified to take my foot off the brake to see where I end up. So, I sit week after week, frustrated and confused, trying to be patient while I also fight myself, blame myself, and attack myself all over again.

Not exactly the update of champions, but I have always promised to be real and honest rather than paint a picture of glowing success to feel good.

So, wish me luck on all my attempts at personal success in meeting life the next few weeks (rather than trying to beat it). It’s going to be a challenge, and just like I’ve been reminded over and over, it’s a learning curve with a lot of screw-ups.

Needs. Wants. Better Balance. Sex Therapy. Trauma Therapy. I will figure this out…eventually. I hope.