The Juggler

A million small things can add up! At some level, many of my small things make me happy – I’m extremely excited to be volunteering and working on the Ops committee for GOTR. I’m also feeling really good about my training on all three events – they are coming along and I feel totally confident for the Mission Bay Tri.

At other levels, small things can take a toll. There’s work – which is a major juggling act on it’s own – with flaming tennis balls that keep trying to light my hair on fire and make me run around screaming for about 12 hours a day. And to top it all off, I’ve decided to implement the 30/5 plan, where I actually try to complete more house work than the daily dishes and laundry, feeding the dogs, and making J’s coffee for the next morning. My plan is simple: There are five rooms in our house that we actively live in – our bedroom, our bathroom, the living room, kitchen, and the house bathroom. So, I’m trying to spend 30 minutes a day on one of those rooms during each day of the week. Hence 30/5. My thought is that eventually I’ll get through the standard mess, and be able to handle things like window shutters, and baseboards. And yes, the 30 minute time constraint is to keep me from going off the OCD deep end, where I find myself ironing my shower curtain and wearing toothbrushes out on corners and tile grout – help help!

I’ve got to tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds. As someone who absolutely cannot procrastinate, I find myself constantly anticipating the cleaning that I have to do that evening. I drive myself crazy thinking about what needs to be done, even though the actual process isn’t as terrible as I always remember it to be. You’d think that I could tell myself “You know you’re going to do this at 5pm, and not a minute before, so stop worrying about what you have to do!”. Somehow it doesn’t relieve my stress.

I try to keep it fun by clamping my Shuffle on my shirt, and dancing around as I clean – loosen up the hip flexors, and get myself moving after a long day of mental fugue. Every day I tell myself that it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, and yet the next day (like today) I’m stressing!

Sometimes I need to step back and look at things a little bit more realistically, though. I recently read one of those chain emails that turned all of your “stressors” around and showed you how truly blessed you are. Yes, I have agreed to work full time, volunteer, attempt to manage my house, and train – but I am lucky that I have a job to be stressed about, that I have the opportunity to make a difference, that I have a house (that I have no fear of losing, like so many right now) to clean, and that I am healthy and motivated to train! It really made me realize that things could be a lot worse!

I’ve been trying to use a personal litany to remind myself to calm down – especially the way things are at work right now (to be another post) and not letting anxiety take hold.

Here are the top 5 things that I say to remind myself to chill:
- No matter how this project goes (good, bad, or ugly) I’m still not going to cure cancer with the end result.
- I am grateful that I have the ability to train without pain, and the wisdom to enjoy the process and not just the results.
- I haven’t had to deal with snow on a daily basis for 10 years.
- Chances are likely that regardless of whether or not my cleaning happens, the sun will shine again tomorrow.
- I have people who love me, and an opportunity to make a difference, what more is life about?