Procrastination

Running is sooo hard some days. But really the hardest part is getting started. Motivating myself to put on my running gear and go down to the treadmill or out the door is huge. Today I have put it off for ages.

I should have run yesterday and managed to convince myself that I was just too tired. I ate the treat I had imagined I would have after I run, holding it out to myself as the carrot; persuading myself that I deserved it if I ran, like a good little girl. And then I ate it. And then I told myself now I HAD to run. And still didn't. Too tired. Exhausted from my day; from life, and stress, and ... yeah, just life.

Today... well Tuesdays its just hard to run, after a session with my Dom, or in between sessions. The sessions drain me, often hurting my body, tiring me, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Hard to run after that.

But today I had to run. I was off schedule already after yesterday and I refuse to fall behind the training schedule I want to meet.

And my weight isn't moving. Boo. And I have been pretty good. Yes I did eat the treat yesterday, but that put me 3 points over for the day, well within the flex points if I was using them, which I've been trying not to, but not beating myself up about if I do...

And I wasn't exhausted today, because the session with HIM was good, and fairly intense while it lasted, but shorter because HE really was focused on inauguration day with all the intensity of a political junkie who can't get enough. I think he had the TV on all day, and the attention I drew was during the slow news periods. (I don't resent it, not one day of TV focus, though I'm certain I would hate it if TV crowded out lots of our time together.)

And that did leave me with the energy to run.

So when I finally got myself onto the treadmill, it was easy, and I started to laugh at myself within the first ten steps. Why do I procrastinate? Why do I dread this? Its not great; its never gonna replace sex as fun, but its not terrible either. Its just a matter of doing it. And the key to that, is starting.

And do you suppose that Barack Obama found time for the gym today?

The Blues

Today was such a hard day. Nothing could make me happy. And I know the unhappiness is coming from inside me, making me mean and dissatisfied and pissy. I keep trying to shake it off, to find the good in things. I don't like this me, I'm not fun to be around for anyone else, and I'm not fun for me to have around.

I'm having my period, and I know thats what is making me blue but its horrible this time. I'm horrible this time, much bluer than usual. I want chocolate. I need chocolate. Or sex. Maybe an orgasm would make it better....

I'm so grouchy, at friends, and colleagues and my kids. I told my kids to fuck off this morning. I never do that. And the day kind of went from there. Nothing terrible happened. I was just miserable. I think I was the most terrible thing of the day.

I suppose tomorrow will be better. At least as long as I don't binge tonight...

running is hard

omg it feels good when you stop! I have been running on the treadmill, and I use everything in the world to motivate myself, and its still hard hard hard.

I think about the half marathon I have committed to running. I think about being fitter, thinner, think about fitting into clothes, think about how great my muscles will look, think about being able to run faster than my kids, further, think about impressing them, if only for that one day.

I think about being able to run faster, more easily, with less effort. I think about it getting easier to do the distance, to do the time.

I think about the girl that motivated me to do this, much younger, thinner, fitter, and think about just finishing.

I think about the treat I can have if I finish the run, think about maybe not having the treat, and putting the extra calories towards the grand effort. I think about progress, slow but there.

I think about the songs that are playing. I think about anything I can think of to distract myself.

I think about one more minute, one more song, one more lap.

And then its over. Thank God! Running is hard.

blog

I love the way my words look on the page, so smooth and pleasing and professional looking. I like looking at the final product. I like the formatting, green and pale and simple, though I have admired other formats too, and will experiment with them, playing with colour and images and style. The colour is clearly a factor as is the fact that the Blogger fairies format things and make it all beautiful, that all I do is write it and hit publish and poof, its perfect.

But for me the best thing right now is seeing my words on the screen, they flow down the screen, running off the bottom, and I am often surprised that I wrote so much. It feels like an accomplishment. A product. I love that they build up, accumulations of ideas that I have had. Flowing from my mind through my fingers and onto my screen.

I like this so far.

I am a little intimidated still by the need to be perfect. And only too aware that I'm not. My writing is stilted and stifled a little (no Sir, not by the knowledge that You will read it, because you have read millions of my thoughts, billions of my words, you know me through my words, and writing to you doesn't intimidate me). Its the idea of writing for posterity I think. Silly. Anyone reading what I write will be reading it because they like what I write, like reading the way I write, so I should just relax and do it. Perhaps though, the fact of the smooth green perfection it turns into intimidates me a bit, making me feel like the content should be significant or brilliant or amusing.

In the meantime though, I like what it has become, is becoming. Mine.

status

I'm pretty happy with the way that my resolutions are going so far. I'm sticking to my diet pretty well and seeing the scales move the right way for the first time in a long time. And sticking to exercise resolutions as well.

Exercise is a bit harder in some ways because its SUCH HARD WORK. And sometimes I set out to do more than I physically can. I think that I always plan for the perfect set of conditions, that all will go perfectly, and then I push myself, and sometimes it works, but sometimes I defeat myself by reaching too high. So part of me getting back to exercise is to set reasonable goals, go at them slowly, and be prepared to revise them as required, and to not beat myself up if i revise them.

I also need to accept that especially as I am going to run long distances I cannot run every day. 3 times a week or 4 at the most is best for me. If I want to do other things, for fitness or weight loss it has to be other kinds of exercise. And I have to plan it that way, and not plan to do too much and then fail at it. It needs to be a success to do it, not a failure to do more of it.

I am running so much better than I was 3 weeks ago, I'm very happy about that. And of course I want to run better, faster, longer, more effortlessly, but I do know that will come.

I have been really good about actually doing it, making time for exercise, and its somewhat amazing to realize that it doesn't take as much time in reality as I always mentally need to set aside for it. A 20 minute run takes 30 minutes, start to finish. But it really doesn't take longer than that.

It is hard to run, the actually running is hard. Its supposed to be. Its supposed to get my heart rate up, make me sweat, make me burn calories, make me healthy. Its supposed to be hard. And when its not hard any more, I have to turn the treadmill speed up, run faster, longer, harder. Its supposed to be hard. Its not supposed to be impossible. If its impossible, I have to turn the speed down, run slower, jog along slowly til i have recovered a bit. It will come. I know this. All the running I ever did in the past make my body more capable of relearning to run.

I doubt that the little bit of weight I have actually lost makes it any easier. In fact, I am probably the same weight I was when I started my plan to run again (too much of everything over Christmas and New Years), so that's not a factor yet, but it will be if I keep doing what I have been doing. AND... I am less than I was on January 1, AND I am running better.

Oh and I did book into the hotel with the health club rather than the one with the all you can eat chocolate buffet. How's that for planning for success?

submission

This blog started off ostensibly about submission and hasn't progressed very much in that direction. There are reasons for that; my Dom was away when I started it, without his permission I might add, so I knew I ran the risk of him being annoyed that I had strayed outside the lines. Except that it wasn't technically outside the lines, but, I will say that I had a sense that he might see it that way.

So, I should have told him. Except for two things. First, as I said he was away, and while we had some communication during that time, we didn't have much, and I thought he would almost certainly sigh in exasperation, and say "subgirl, not now", and put me on hold, which I hate: both the exasperation, and the putting me on hold.

Second, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, whether I wanted a place where I could say things I don't say to him. In the rest of my life I am strong, assertive, bossy. I manage things and people. In my relationship with him I am submissive, and he loves that submissive part of me. And although I know he knows the other part is there, and he hears about the other part, and I think kind of admires the other part, he doesn't hear the other part talk about submission or about him. Complicated I know.

And its not that the submission isnt real. It is very real, and I love it and him, but sometimes its frustrating. And sometimes the hottest thing is the struggle of trying to submit.

Anyway, I did tell him. He was mad, said I had decieved him by not telling earlier. I have been punished. And now I am left wondering again, or still, how I want things to evolve.

My blog

Today I told HIM about my blog and he was angry as I had thought he would be.

I was angry and defensive too. I knew when I did it that there was a good chance that he wouldn't like it, that he might forbid it, or tell me to wait, or at the very least, that he would want it to be different than I wanted it.

I think I did want it to be somehow a refuge, a private place, a place where I might somehow find friends who would support me, understand me. Where I could say things that were important to me without having to defend them.

But I think I always knew that it wasnt going to be quite what I wanted it to be, that it would disappoint on various fronts. Some bloggers have 100s or 1000s of people who read their stuff every day. Would that kind of readership have appeared to me as success? Would I have felt like I was making friends that way?

Its unrealistic to imagine that I would have tons of people who would read a blog if it was as eclectic as I really am, concerned with the things in my life, my kids, my men, my body, my submission, even my professional stuff. There's no real way to blend all that into something that people come back to read.

And... I'm not entirely sure I want them to. I wanted a place to write my thoughts more than anything else, a place where I wouldn't be judged. I wanted this blog to be a completely unjudgemental forum.

I kept it secret while I played around with it, wondering what I wanted it to be. And I kept it secret from HIM partly because of the timing of it. When I set it up I did know he wouldnt like it if it was a secret.

BUT there are a couple of reasons for not sharing the address of this place with him. One is that he might forbid it. One is that the might forbid me to talk about our relationship here, which is a huge part of me. Or will want it private which defeats what I think I want here. One is that knowing that he is reading shades my writing.

If I write I am angry, I have to justify it. If I write that I have eaten a plate of rum balls I will be lectured. I wanted a place to just write I think.

HE says that I have betrayed a trust by keeping this a secret, that I have lied by not telling about it.

This all makes me feel like crying. And eating.

Why cant he see this as something I did tell rather than something I withheld? As I did tell it today. And really, after the beginning of December when it started there wasnt a damn thing in it besides diet and weight and exercise resolutions and laments.

None of this sounds very submissive does it? And I would like to be submissive. But I feel like I am exposed and defensive. I feel like all my answers about "why" will somehow focus on fairness. Its not fair that he be angry at me because I write about my weight. Its not fair that he be angry that I keep a diary. Its not fair that he be angry that I have a blog.

Those are the things I thought this afternoon. And I have a reason for why each thing is not fair. And yes I do recognize that fair isnt what our relationship is supplsed to be about.

HE said that he wants to control every bit of my online life. And I have agreed to that. I'm not sure what that means for my blog. I think I will miss it if it goes.

I guess thats all.

progress?

today its hard to not hang around the fridge. I found a pretty book with empty pages to write my food and exercise points in. The book might be too pretty for such a utilitarian purpose, but thats negative thinking isnt it? I have the book, and should use it for something important... and thats me in this case.

It is better for me when i write down what I eat, makes me focus on what I eat, what I will eat, what i have eaten. i eat better things, better portion control. And am less likely to lose control. Though of course its still possible.

I was angry earlier. At the world I think. At injustice and accusations and inattention. From a variety of sources. And my usual response is to turn to food, my old friend. And in this case, in this unusual case, I managed not to. Go me.

I have faith right now. Faith in my desire to succeed at this diet, this change in lifestyle. I want to be thinner, to be prettier and fitter. To run faster. Thats a big one. To run with less effort. That would be amazing.

I wonder if I had pictures of runners, or better maybe of me running, if that would help. I wonder where i need the motivating pictures, on the treadmill? on my computer? on the kitchen cupboards?

I will run on the treadmill too, once I am not on mom duty. And do a thousand loads of laundry. And feel like an accomplished super mom.

life

My life is finally getting back to normal after the holidays. I ate a reasonable supper tonight for the first time in WEEKS, and though I didnt run, I did walk in the snow for an hour, my calves were aching after that.

And now I am trying to find things to do other than EAT. Its hard to resist the temptation to just get up and go to the kitchen and chow down on cookies or tarts or rumballs or something.

I need to focus on the results I want. And maybe I need to go have a shower and brush my teeth.

Back on the wagon

from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet
On Children
Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.You may house their bodies but not their souls,For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them,but seek not to make them like you.For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies,so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Thats something to remember isnt it? Really it says "do the best you can, and what happens is in God's hands".