Once upon a time there was a girl called Schmiet who was a morning person. Not one to dilly-dally about in the morning, she’d get up, dress, breakfast and be out of the door within a 20 minute period. By 7am she’d be on the coach-formerly-know-as -a-pumpkin to her workplace in the city along with all of the other early morning non-princesses and just half an hour later she’d be happily ensconced behind her desk bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for the day before her. Or something.
However… in recent times (and by that I mean the last year or so) the same non-princess has really struggled in the morning. Her alarm goes off and she keeps resetting it and resetting it. Until recently in fact, she’d settled into a routine of – though planning to rise early – actually crawling out of bed at 7.45am, to catch a 8.15am coach-that-was-a-pumpkin into the city, finally staggering into work at 9am. She justified this by telling all and sundry that the later coach-formerly-known-as-a-pumpkin isn’t as busy and she always gets a seat etc etc. And that’s true. In part. But… between you and me… the bigger issue is that frankly it just kills her to get out of bed. The End. (Okay, so not really… I’m just bored with the whole fairytale thing and tired of writing in third person!)
That’s changed over the past few weeks as I’ve been awake and rising early. It may be a temporary thing I realise, although of course it’s up to me to make it permanent. Sadly I’m not getting up early to exercise… No sirree. Nor have I planned to. Mostly I’m enjoying lunchtime gym classes, so don’t plan to exercise before work. Rather, at 6.30am each day I’m now drafting or tidying my daily blog posts. And it’s been great. With visits to my father straight after work every day, my evenings start a lot later than before and I was starting to get quite stressed by the lack of time I had (as I used to write / blog at night). But… early morning blogging has been much easier than I thought and… like exercising first thing… it gives me a sense of accomplishment. And, in fact, I know what comes next may shock you, as I’m always such a misery-guts, but I’m feeling a bit like this….
I know, I know… you’re terrified that I’ve suddenly found religion or been main-lining self-help books. Believe me, I am conscious of how negative I can be. I see it in others and know how frustrating it can be for those around them. Even constantly negative tweets from almost-complete strangers can be exhausting…. so I can only imagine how I am perceived sometimes.
It amazes me that it doesn’t take much for me to feel ‘in control’ of my world. Missing a couple of gym sessions last week (too busy for lunch breaks and evenings spent at the hospital) had me feeling very unsettled. So, this week I’m planning to cut back on my hospital visits (to every second day – although I feel guilty just writing that) so IF I can’t exercise at lunch, I will be able to do so early evening.
I’m not magically ‘better’ and I’m not going to do a ‘things I need to be grateful for’ post to remind myself that my life really isn’t that fucked. And, it may surprise you, but I do realise that, in fact, on the whole it isn’t fucked at all.
All I’m doing today is letting the world know that I’m feeling okay. Vaguely positive and hopeful.
I can’t promise I’ll be like this tomorrow, but at this very moment in time… I’m feeling good. Great even. And do you know one of the reasons why? Not just because I’ve been eating healthily for the last few days and feel in control of my food; or that I’ve not imbibed in alcohol for a couple of days; or even that I had a good exercise session yesterday and have plans in place for today… but it was also this tweet (below) which I noticed as I was tossing and turning (feeling uncomfortable and irritable) in bed last night. It reminded me of my Full of Awesome post and others like it. This was all it took for me to smile and remember that all CAN BE, and mostly IS, well in the world.
Tomorrow when I wake up I’m gonna be awesome. #justsaying
October 18, 2011
I think it’s an awesome idea to early morning blog. I usually blog at night and think I could be doing so much better 🙂
October 18, 2011
Liz
My evenings once felt endless. Although I don’t usually get home from work until 6.30 or so I LOVE my nights, so I’d allocate 4-5hrs to television, writing, reading in the bath etc. I’d slowly potter over dinner as I blogged etc. However, I’ve got my mother with me at the moment and am conscious that I shouldn’t make her eat at 10pm at night – which I was always happy to do, so my routines are a bit screwy.
Given that I’m waking early I’m finding that I can spend at least half an hour writing before I need to worry about breakfast and dressing quickly to head off to work at a decent hour. (Plus it’s out of the way!)
Sometimes I try to start a few blog posts on weekends so I’m ahead and don’t have to stress during the week.
Deb
October 18, 2011
yeah to feeling great!
October 18, 2011
Indeedy!
October 18, 2011
Wow, you’re very organised!
I’m just a disorganised blogger, I just have a thought, type it up, and then walk away. Very low fuss.
I’m interested in how you plan your blog posts, pre-prepare, edit, etc?
October 18, 2011
Katy
With this blog I just type straight into the blog fields, although I do try to be a day or so ahead, so I can leave the post alone for a while before coming back to it. Also, I like to post during the day (but work then). I often have a blog post half-written when I get struck by some new idea so the old one gets shelved until a later date.
I often get ideas from others’ posts and I follow a lot of blogs. I find it hard to read them all regularly so go through a couple of times a week and do a massive read. I find that a couple usually hit home for various (and sometimes unknown) reasons.
Re editing: after writing I always leave the post for a while if possible and go back to edit and re-read when I am fresh (otherwise I miss the same mistakes all of the time). Sometimes I forget to spell check and I cringe later if I’m re-reading the published post and see a typo. (Argh!)
I have another blog which I RARELY post in – although it is my ‘public’ post (ie. my friends and family know about it and it’s linked to my Facebook page) but I get very angsty over that blog and I write drafts in Word etc first and edit them to death before actually posting them. Which, of course, is why it remains dormant for long periods of time. I have at least half a dozen partially-written but never-completed posts for that blog. I worry about it far more than this one. For example, when I do write something for it I often put a link on FB… but then I go away and start stressing about people I know reading it and WHO DO I THINK I AM that I think others would be interested in what I write etc…. So then delete the link!
The anonymity of this blog suits me far better… though through this weight-loss program I’ve met people who read it – though they knew me through the blog first (and yet STILL seemed to like me… despite knowing all sorts of embarrassing crap about me!!!). I’m keen to take my blogging further but am in a bit of a quandary about which blog to progress etc…
I actually like the no-fuss approach you talk about Katy and look at blogs like yours and / others that feature short sweet blog posts and keep thinking that I need to change my approach. (Having said that, this response has now become EPIC in length!)
I have to admit, posting daily (other than on weekends) is sometimes quite challenging and occasionally I think that I’m going to cut back, but I quite enjoy the process. I know many people blog because they have a passion about their topics (health and fitness etc). I started from the other direction. I love writing so the fact that I’m writing about dieting, weight loss etc, is more because that is a HUGE factor in my life…. as much as anything else. The ideal blog for me would be one combining my two blogs and just writing about everyday stuff!
Deb
October 19, 2011
I LOVE this post. It’s not necessarily the positivity in it. That’s a by-product of what I read between the lines (even if you didn’t intend for there to be any lines). You are putting yourself first little by little. In making time for you and doing the things you need to do to keep you feeling good about yourself on the whole, you turn out to be a more positive, more optimistic person. And when you take care of you, you’re better able to take care of others. I’m not sure what’s going on with your father, but just knowing he’s not well and hasn’t been is enough. I can empathize with you. My father was sick with cancer for a while and passed away a few years ago. It isn’t’ easy at any age, but sometimes I wish I knew then what I know now about taking care of myself and putting my needs first instead of burying my head in the proverbial sand. Just take each day as it comes and one step at a time. That’s all anyone can ask for. You’ve got this!
October 19, 2011
I like the idea that by prioritising myself and my needs a bit more I am becoming more positive. I normally live alone (and am single) so feel like I have all of the time in the world to / for myself, but don’t know that I really ‘value’ myself as I should and often don’t feel ‘worthy’. I tend to put others (including complete strangers) before myself.
Even at the moment, I feel guilty prioritising time for exercise in my working day because I’ve never really been one to take lunch breaks. And… taking time to blog when I could be exercising (or doing something else which I think others believe to be more important) is also challenging.
My father had a heart transplant nearly 11 years ago. A side effect of the drugs to suppress his immune system (so his body doesn’t reject the heart) has meant that he’s had countless skin cancers, including an aggressive type at Christmas and had 6 weeks of radiotherapy in response. He seemed recovered though over the last couple of months has been excessively tired etc. I went home about six weeks ago as he wasn’t well and while I was there he went into hospital. He was later transferred to hospital here (in the capital city in which I live) and they discovered the cancer had spread throughout his bones.
He moved into palliative care last week. My mother’s staying with me and I am trying to support her as best I can. He’s starting to deteriorate now and I guess what comes next is inevitable…. On one hand it devastates me that he won’t be around, but on the other he’s now having trouble breathing etc. I know once he’s gone life won’t be the same, but I also can’t stand to see him like this….. (Sorry, went on a bit then).
Deb
October 20, 2011
Please don’t think I’m being judgmental here but one thing I’ve noticed in reading your blog over the last few months is you don’t give yourself enough credit for the good decisions you are making. In this post, when you mention that you’re getting up early, you immediately follow that with “it may be a temporary thing”. Give yourself a pat on the back and don’t worry so much now about keeping it up tomorrow. Be glad with what you’ve done and simply keep trying.
October 20, 2011
Gillian
I don’t think you are being judgemental, but I certainly know I am… particularly when it comes to me. Just this morning I reassured someone via Twitter about their weight loss which was less than they expected and as I was doing so I realised that I don’t do the same thing for myself. I am WAY harder on myself than I would be on others (which I guess is kinda common).
I try to watch my language, but definitely need to improve on that and STOP the negativity. Thanks so much for the reminder. I have come a long way and achieved a lot over the past few months and guess I need to acknowledge that a bit more – and the fact that I’m still plodding along in the right direction.
Deb
October 20, 2011
I really need an epic day today. And I love how you write back long detailed comments. It’s really a discussion on your blog. I try to do that too, when I have time, in my blog.
🙂 Marion
October 20, 2011
Thanks Marion. If my commenters (commentators?) are other bloggers I always go and read their blogs as well and end up following many and I get so many ideas from other bloggers I like the chit chat to and fro. The biggest difficulty I find is the time difference between US/European bloggers, in terms of engaging more on Twitter. I ‘to and fro’ a lot with other Aussies on Twitter but elsewhere in the world we are like ships passing in the night!).
Deb