Finally

OMG, what a month. We had MIL here for 3 weeks, followed immediately by my family, and then work travel for me. AND just when we thought it was all over and we could relax, I got the flu. I actually traveled and gave a talk while I had the flu. It sucked. And while I was gone, G got the flu too. And developed pneumonia on top of it. He's on his 2nd round of antibiotics and finally afebrile and went to work today for the first time in 2 weeks.

I basically had to scale back to only doing what was 100% absolutely necessary for survival/keeping my job. Which...turns out to still be exhausting when you are horribly sick. I'm finally feeling better (but still pretty wiped out). I went to a barre class today and it was...tough...but doable. I'm easing back into exercise and other claims on my energy.

I am really really looking forward to a weekend with no one sick and no extra family in our house. It was MID-MARCH when we last had that.

I found out (today) that my schedule is changing substantially for the next year (beginning in July) and I'm trying really hard not to spiral into despair. Meticulous planning & time management will be needed, thankfully I'm pretty good at those things, but still. I feel tired just thinking about it.

Lots of posts about weight/body image/food/etc... in my feeds lately. I actually enjoyed NOT WORRYING ABOUT IT when I was sick, which is pretty sad if you think about it.

I've gone back to my new therapist 2 more times and its been...somewhat eye-opening. I vacillate between feeling like the therapy will help me uncover and work through some deep-seated issues to being embarrassed that I expend all this time/energy on my privileged-middle-age-mommy first-world-problems. I'm sure it will surprise exactly no one that it turns out I have wide streaks of perfectionism and people-pleasing that may be getting in my own way. All the list-making and habit-tracking and self-improving may actually stem from a lifelong feeling of not being good enough/nice enough/thin enough/smart enough...just not being ENOUGH.

So we are working on acceptance. And "self-love". And as much as it makes me cringe...HARD...it may be the right way to go because it sure feels better than listening to the critical bitch that lives in my head.