I am working so hard on so many things right now. So many areas of my life that I want to change, am ready for change, and am willing to put in the work. But nothing’s happening. It’s like I’m throwing pennies, or maybe even pieces of pennies, into a well the size of the universe, that could never be full even with all my earthly allotment of days spent throwing. Dramatic, maybe. But persevering is so difficult without the motivation of seeing results. The truth is that I’m on the cusp of giving up. I’m tired of fighting so hard for losing…but something always stops me. I can’t help but desperately cling to the possibility that, amidst my seemingly constant state of inertia, I’m actually on the cusp of success.
I’ve been working like hell on my fitness. When I turned 40 a couple years ago, my metabolism broke in half. I gained 10 pounds of cellulite on my stomach that refuses to go away, no matter how consistent I am with my workout and diet. I’ve tried things in the past two years that I’ve never tried before in a real way, like giving up carbs, fasting, eating most of my calories in the first half of the day instead of the second. I have never failed at anything in my life as repeatedly as I have at losing these 10–15 pounds that would make all the difference in the world to me. I have a closet full of clothes I love just waiting for it! So lately, in the past few months, I’ve really doubled down. Worked on my mindset and my intentions…so that every day, every action I take in regard to eating and exercising and rest should move me one step closer to my goal. I made a chart to track my progress daily. I fasted longer, I carb cycled, lifted weights only twice a week to give myself long enough to recover, kept my blood sugar stable. And the result? Same weight, same body fat percentage, menstrual cycle out of whack. Nowhere closer to my goal. Defeated. It’s literally Groundhog Day in this department, every day. For months, maybe even years at this point.
I’ve also doubled down on my efforts to progress my side hustle income of reselling clothes and hard goods into a real source of savings. I committed at least two hours per day (on top of my 40 hour a week job, single mom daily driving routine, obvious workout commitments, etc.). I invested more money, ignored the fear of failure, and plowed ahead like the experts in this industry recommend you do to succeed—more investment, more time, and more action should equal greater results. But it hasn’t. Sales are the same. And technically, profit is less because of my re-investing. Meanwhile, my house is quickly becoming filled with all of these widgets just waiting to be sold. I feel a little insane, wondering if I’m actually more of a hoarder than any sort of business person. I’m frantically trying to clean out my pantry and random closet shelves around the house of my own personal belongings just to feel like my earthly “stuff” burden is lighter. Thinking about giving up. It’s so much time to invest if the payoff isn’t there. There must be a simpler way of producing extra income for my single-parent-life-with-kids-in-private-school that doesn’t involve buying all of these things that may never be sold. Maybe my strategy for this business was all wrong to begin with. Maybe I’ve already capped out on my potential for success here.
My love life also seems to be going nowhere. My boyfriend and I, after years of a stalled relationship, decided to take a “break” to work on our own personal issues for a while. At the time of splitting, the joint goal was to “fix” ourselves so that we could try again, in a healthier state. It was a very adult decision, although I didn’t like it at the time. It was his idea. But as the weeks and months have passed and I’ve spent many hours in therapy and crying alone when the kids are at their dad’s…I’m glad he had the maturity to make the call. He was right. It’s been over seven years since my former husband and I split up, and it turns out that I’ve been shoving down a lot of damaging feelings and ways of thinking from that time period that I’ve never fully dealt with. I’ve ignored them, I’ve swallowed them in so many bottles of wine, I’ve marched around my house with more anger than I’ve ever had the nerve to even show to another human, especially not in the moment that they’ve hurt me. But I’ve worked like hell on my issues since the day we split up which is now six months ago. For the first time in maybe my entire life, I believe that I’m OK, just as I am. He seems to be more at ease as well. We’ve both stated that we’re ready to put our toes back in the water, together. But that seems to be as far as we can get. We occasionally meet for lunch or go to dinner, and we smile and laugh like always. We kiss, we stoke the fire. But we only let any feelings hit us ankle deep. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again. He makes plans with everyone in the world except for me. I fantasize about telling him how far I’ve come in the past months and how ready I am to be open and honest and love just for the sake of loving. But my mouth stays shut. It seems like he doesn’t want to hear that, even though he probably does. We are so stuck.
But still, I just can’t help but wonder: What if things are about to turn around?
It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.
– Thomas Fuller
Today, the pseudo boyfriend went with me to Lowe’s to pick up a new kitchen sink, which he has graciously offered to install for me at some point when has availability amidst many plans he has made with other people. I had ordered and paid for it online, then later received an email that it was ready to pickup. When we walked in, there was no line at the “Pickup” counter, although 23 people were in line for one “Returns” register. There was also no one working the pickup counter. It took 20 minutes to get anyone to begin to help us. And after this small, older woman finally took down my order number and disappeared into the back to presumably retrieve my 100+ pound cast iron sink, we waited longer. We questioned whether or not BF should leave and pick up the sushi we had ordered 30 minutes ago when we arrived at Lowe’s, or if he should wait with me. I told him to go. It was a Wednesday and we were on lunch break time. But he said, “You know, these moments are funny because you have absolutely no idea what’s going on and how long you might have to wait. It could be 5 minutes, but it could be 50. And it’s hard to make a decision about what to do when you just have no idea what’s going on.”
He wasn’t trying to be profound because that’s not his style. He was just stating the truth. And how true it is. If I reflect on all of these situations, these mountains, that I feel I have been climbing for so F-ING long (and I didn’t even mention my financial hurdles or home improvement challenges), I could say the exact same thing. You don’t know what it looks like on the other side yet, because you’re still steps away from the precipice, and you’ve never been past that before, at least not in the way that you could be now.
But in that moment, a decision was necessary. I was tired of waiting. Leave, I said. If she comes while you’re gone, I’ll just wait for you to get back.
