My father had major surgery yesterday. When I saw him tonight he was on major pain killers. Admittedly I was exhausted when I saw him tonight. It has been a long few months and an even longer week. Despite that I was quite surprised when my father said that I looked "really stressed" and needed to go to the gym to relax. I was stressed. I can't deny it. I wanted (well, needed) to go to the gym, get my training run in, and sleep. I haven't been sleeping well lately. Even when I've wanted to there has been too much on my mind to do so. I even took an ambien one night last week and I had so much going on that I still wasn't able to sleep.
The last thing that I wanted to do was anything that involved thought and discussion. But my little sister needed help with her history test; she was only allowed to bring it home tonight and review the errors that she had made. The topic of her test was the Constitution and judiciary (it is American History) so the test was, theoretically, right up my alley. She is an uber smart kid but was having some issues conceptually understanding federal jurisdiction and the different ways to achieve it. Truth be told, I don't know that I truly understood the subject until I finished my second year of law school so why I expected that she would get it based on an 8th grade text book I don't quite know. (Shit, the fact that she is learning all of this in 8th grade is impressive enough.)
Why do I mention all of this? I don't really know. A few weeks ago some of my friends lectured me about needing to do more for me. I heard them, I really did, but based on the craziness of life I haven't been able to implement their suggestions as much as I would like to. I did try to run tonight. It was a futile effort. Even though the distance was 4.3 miles it was crap. I was never mentally in the run. I spent the entire time thinking about everything I had to do and trying to figure out whether there was time to get it all done. Sure, I sweat which was great. I burned calories and presumably diffused some stress. I don't feel better, though. I still am exhausted and want to sleep but I can't fall asleep.
I did realize something tonight. Six months ago running was something that I did for me. It was me being selfish and pushing myself. It was me getting excited about running gear and trying to reach goals that I never thought I would attain. Now, especially with so many balls in the air, running is something that I do for those around me. If I don't run (or exercise in some manner) then I'm not much fun to be around. Running and exercising is what I need to do in order to at least give the appearance that I am balancing all of the balls that I have in the air. Funny how that shift occurred and I don't know when it did --- but it happened.
I used to tease the people who said that if they didn't have coffee, or so many hours of sleep, or get to the gym that they were miserable to be around. I thought they were simply saying what they thought they had to say because it was what the magazines, TV shows, etc. were saying. I was a real asshole for doing so. I can now say that I am one of those people. I don't function as well if I don't get that run in. Does that make me a legitimate runner?
If it does maybe that will ease my mind a little bit. If it eases my mind enough to let me sleep for just 2-3 hours I'd be eternally grateful. I might be so grateful that I would run tomorrow because I want to rather than need to.
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