{"id":3654,"date":"2014-04-03T10:17:12","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T17:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/?p=3654"},"modified":"2014-04-03T10:17:12","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T17:17:12","slug":"the-ups-and-downs-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/the-ups-and-downs-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The  Ups and Downs of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been struggling lately.<\/p>\n<p>And I&#8217;m feeling really worn down.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/xangelle\/13605988345\/player\/\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Which is crazy frustrating cause I&#8217;m pretty much doing all the right things&#8230;&#8230;.sort of.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m exercising more than I ever have in my entire life&#8230;..all put together.  I&#8217;m eating well (<em>except for the last 3 days<\/em>). I&#8217;m regularly taking my anti-anxiety meds.  I could maybe get a little more sleep, but 7 hours a night isn&#8217;t too bad.  The sun has been out (<em>should probably be out in it more<\/em>.) I&#8217;ve got tons of seedlings started for my garden, and dirt all piled up ready to go.  So many good things&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, I wish I felt stronger&#8230;..more powerful, more capable, more in control&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, I&#8217;m walking around feeling&#8230;&#8230;weary, defeated, uncertain&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t feel good.<\/p>\n<p>There are things that I think I should be proud of, accomplishments that are a good thing&#8230;&#8230;I&#8217;ve lost over 15 pounds.  I literally ran myself down a size in my running tights.  (<em>my last run in them was a horrible run because I literally had to hold them up the entire run cause they wouldn&#8217;t stay up and the extra roomy fabric caused some extreme chaffing in some sensitive areas&#8230;&#8230;ahem!!<\/em>)  I also ran\/walked 100 km&#8217;s in March.  That&#8217;s kind of mind blowing to me because&#8230;..well I&#8217;ve never done that before. The highest km&#8217;s I had done in a month when I was running before was April 2013 and I managed a whopping 46 kms.  So I more than doubled it.  And today, I ran for 25 mins, no walking, no stopping.  35 mins in total with a 5 mins walking warm up and a 5 min walking cool down.  That&#8217;s all good right.  I even managed to pound out 4.5km in that 35 mins.  So it&#8217;s not like I&#8217;m sprinting, but I kept up a steady pace&#8230;&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m just&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;I dunno.  Today I actually felt depressed about my life.  I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve felt like this since about 3\/4 of the way through Angelica&#8217;s cancer treatment.  <\/p>\n<p>I posted a comment on Facebook the other night&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p><center><em>Sometimes I think about the people who seem to have it all together and how everything seems to really work for them&#8230;..then I wonder if somebody might be thinking that about me and then I laugh and laugh and laugh &#8211; &#8217;cause seriously?&#8230;&#8230;.and then maybe, I cry. #sometimeslifesastruggle #onefootinfrontoftheother<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;&#8230;I was thinking about how it&#8217;s seemed like a tough run for us for the past&#8230;..well, it&#8217;s been a long time.  Nathaniel died in Jan 2007 and there has been a lot of tragedy since then and there was quite a bit of stress in our lives (<em>for differing reasons<\/em>) before then.  It&#8217;s not that there&#8217;s not been good.  There has been so much good, but the tough stuff wears on you.<\/p>\n<p>I got some varied responses and to be honest, I struggled with actually posting it, and re-wrote it a few times before settling on that wording.  I was concerned how people might take it.  I wasn&#8217;t whining and those who know me&#8230;..I think they &#8220;heard&#8221; my voice in those words.  <\/p>\n<p>I was more saying that sometimes I might think that there are those who seem to have it all together or seem like they have a fairly &#8220;normal&#8221; or &#8220;less stressful&#8221; life, but no one knows what is really going on, behind the scenes, unless they actually know them and have been given insight into the inner workings of their lives.  I&#8217;ve had people comment to me that I seem to have it all together or that I can handle SO much&#8230;&#8230;or that certain things don&#8217;t seem to faze me.  <\/p>\n<p>What I know is that my life is not perfect.  It&#8217;s not easy and if for some weird and strange reason, I &#8220;<strong>seem<\/strong>&#8221; to have it all together&#8230;&#8230;that&#8217;s totally not the reality.  <\/p>\n<p>I really,Really, REALLY do NOT have it all together.  <\/p>\n<p>And if it could possibly appear that I might have it all together&#8230;&#8230;.. then my view of someone else having it all together may be completely off, as well.  Everyone lives life&#8230;..and life has a tendency to be messy and real.  And sometimes you just gotta laugh, and sometimes&#8230;.it&#8217;s just too hard to laugh and well&#8230;..well, then you might cry.  And that&#8217;s ok too.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, I hate feeling like this.<br \/>\nI hate feeling&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8221;less than&#8230;.&#8221;<br \/>\nI hate feeling overwhelmed.<br \/>\nI hate feeling like I&#8217;m drowning&#8230;..it&#8217;s that feeling that things are just piling up on top of you and you can never get enough done to just stay caught up; let alone ever getting ahead&#8230;&#8230;.I hate that feeling.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to feel like this, but probably the hardest thing for me right now is that I&#8217;m not sure how to &#8220;change&#8221; or &#8220;fix&#8221; this; and that&#8217;s tough.<\/p>\n<p>I just keep reminding myself that season&#8217;s change and this one will too.<\/p>\n<p>What do you do when you are feeling a bit down or overwhelmed?  Any suggestions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been struggling lately. And I&#8217;m feeling really worn down. Which is crazy frustrating cause I&#8217;m pretty much doing all the right things&#8230;&#8230;.sort of. I&#8217;m exercising more than I ever have in my entire life&#8230;..all put together. I&#8217;m eating well (except for the last 3 days). I&#8217;m regularly taking my anti-anxiety meds. I could maybe &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/the-ups-and-downs-of-life\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The  Ups and Downs of Life&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[64,11,5,16,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100-days-towards-myself","category-just-crap","category-life","category-me","category-mental-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3658,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3654\/revisions\/3658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}