Trying to Keep the Finish Line in My Sights

My first half marathon. When I was young and in good shape.

There's a reason I've never run a full marathon. Actually probably 20+ reasons... Half marathons are challenging, but they still (somewhat) allow me to maintain my sanity and enjoy the run. I'm almost 100% certain that wouldn't be the case if I did a full 26.2 miles.

Over the last few weeks, I've been feeling like I'm running the final leg of a marathon. I can see the finish line, but my legs are buckling, everything hurts, and I can't hear the people cheering anymore.

I'm pretty much a hot mess.

Remember that post I wrote about all the overwhelm feeling like abundance? That lasted about 24 hours.

After that (and before, too) what it really felt like was complete overload from having a husband out of the country for 6+ months, two houses and yards to care for, cats that are serious a-holes a lot of the time, more travel than I can handle, and a workload that gives me heart palpitations. Oh, and let's not forget this new career path I'm trying to pursue. Yep, I'm the life coach who totally has her act together. Not.

I took my niece to Santa Ynez to celebrate her 13th birthday this past weekend, and everything was going pretty great (she was even patient when I insisted on pulling weeds for 45 minutes Sunday morning) until she alerted me to a bug on the dining room wall. It was a freaking cockroach. In a house that literally has no food stored outside the airtight refrigerator.

Beautiful ride. Even though it was about 92° and we witnessed a squirrel murder.

The roach nearly put me over the edge. One more thing to take care of on my own. One more weight on my overloaded shoulders.

In a state of desperation, I called my mom on the drive home and said, "I need help. I'm going to have a nervous breakdown."

It's not easy to ask for help when you pride yourself on being an independent person. It took a lot to make that call. And after it, I made another to my sister. And then I took my brother up on some additional assistance (he's going to spray the house for roaches).

It's sort of like people have joined me on the race course and have hoisted me up by the armpits to help me get through the last few miles.

It definitely helps. But it didn't stop me from bursting into tears when I found myself scrubbing cat pee off the bathroom floor. And then there were more tears when one of the feline a-holes pooped over the side of the litterbox and I had to clean the floor again five minutes after the first time.

Cats are jerks.

Mr. W comes home in about 6 weeks. I have to travel next weekend and the weekend after, and at least a couple more times in July. Some people think traveling equals vacation. It does not. But it's nice to know that the end is in sight. The finish line is near.

And hopefully there's an ambulance waiting for me just beyond it.

Sucker Punches from the Universe

Image credited to this site

My calendar and to-do list have been putting me through the ringer lately. And I feel like a wimp for even saying that because I know there are loads of people out there who have far more on their plates than I do. But man alive, does it feel like the Universe been giving me a run for my money...

I think it really started to sink in when I had to drive up to the Santa Ynez house the night of Mother's Day to meet an appraiser in the morning (we're refinancing). Although I love going to the new house, those trips lead to neglect of the Hollywood house...and I often come home to find cat hair and cat litter covering every surface. I'm hoping it belongs to my two cats and they're not throwing wild parties while I'm out of town...

In the back of my mind I also knew that I'd be traveling again for the next 3 weekends, all while trying to balance some semblance of house cleanliness + yardwork (Mr. W's grapevines are particularly high maintenance...) + errands (for myself and other people) + a couple of much needed social obligations + those pesky jobs I'm juggling right now, with two different employers and my coaching business. Oh, and did I mention I also had PMS?

The icing on the overload cake was that I was set to lead a weekend retreat for four women I'd never met. And the topic was *Overcoming Overwhelm*! How ya like the Universe's sense of humor now?!

We have a saying in coaching that goes like this: "You've got to live it to give it." And clearly I was living it.

I asked myself the age old gem "How is this serving me?" and realized that, although endlessly painful and frustrating, my stress was helping me remember tactics that would be good to mention at the retreat. 

Thankfully, the weekend went well and I was able to squeeze in 2 full hours of weeding in the front yard before the girls arrived. When I came home Sunday night (after 3 hours in traffic) I was delighted to finally have a smidge of downtime.

And then the cat had some sort of seizurey thing where his back legs wouldn't work right.

And I went over the edge.

Mr. W took the brunt of my f-bombs and Trader Joe's beer tried unsuccessfully to calm my nerves.

The "I CAN'T TAKE ONE MORE THING!!!!!" soundtrack was playing over and over in my head.

But I rallied and got the cat to the vet Monday (he's fine, just needs to be watched in case it happens again). Held things together through my workload Tuesday. And Wednesday, heard the piece of advice that made everything finally feel better.

It wasn't overload, it was abundance.

Having someone position the situation this way released some clenching fist inside me and allowed me to start looking at all the craziness through a lens of gratitude. Sure I had tried to see how things were serving me the week prior, but something about attaching that word "abundance" to it made the feeling of it shift entirely.

I am lucky to have such a full life. A full life that overflows and spills messily over the edge of my cat litter box sometimes. I'm lucky to *have* to travel between two houses and two countries. I'm blessed to have so many social obligations blocking my nights and weekends. I'm fortunate to have such an influx of work filling my waking hours.

And when I can stop and see things from this perspective, I'm grateful for all of it.

Sorry Christmas, You've Been Downsized

I am so behind.

Behind on blogging (I cannot believe it has been almost 13 days since my last confession). Behind on reading my favorite blogs (Hi Nilsa, Sizzle, Mandy, Meg, GH, Lesley, Jeff, Janice, Brett, Chantel, Christine, Autumn, Susie, and anyone else who has posted in the last 3 weeks or so). Behind on my coaching homework and all the big planning and scheming I need to do to start moving the direction I want to go next year.

Even with Mr. W working on a film in Vancouver, I cannot seem to find enough time to get caught up.

Between work projects, house projects, edits to the work projects, fixes to the house projects, holiday shopping and a handful of social obligations, my free time supply is registering a big fat zero.

And that is why I decided to downsize Christmas this year.

I asked Mr. W weeks ago if we could skip exchanging gifts. He poo-pooed the idea. So instead, I took the easy way out with my siblings and siblings-in-law and decided to give them each a weekend at the Santa Ynez house, rather than buy tangible presents. And then I did a large portion of my other shopping from the comfort of my couch.

Also, for the first time in my adult life, I don't have a full-sized Christmas tree. The thought of getting the tree and decorating it felt overwhelming to me. So Mr. W and I went Charlie Brown-style, and picked up a potted, pint-sized fir instead. I kind of like it. And we can plant it in our new back yard after the holidays are over. But it's still a teeny bit sad to look in the corner and not see a 5 - 6 footer twinkling against the Hollywood skyline. In addition to the many balls and baubles that didn't make their way onto the tree, I also left a lot of other seasonal decor in the box this year. I'll call it the bah humbox.

Sadly, I don't want to be a Scrooge. I really want to enjoy the holiday. This is my favorite time of year and it bums me out that so many other things are demanding my attention right now.

Here's to hoping life calms down in 2013. That is, if we all make it past the end of the Mayan calendar next week...