Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Part 1 of a 18901832 part series on Life Balance.

Another part of being Fixed by 40 is to find the ever elusive "Life Balance."

What does Life Balance mean to me?  It means an END to the phenomenon whereby I am hugely successful at only one thing at a time.  Actually, make that two.  I'm always successful at being a parent - I freakin' rock at it (read: I have no idea what I'm doing but somehow it works out).  For REALZ.  But I can only seem to rock at one other thing simultaneous with the parent gig.  If I rock at work, my house is shambles.  If I'm Wife-Of-The-Year, I am in trouble at work.  If something else is going well, I need an oil change, air in my tires and I get in a fender bender.  Who has seen the movie "The Devil Wears Prada?"  I love it!  There's a great line that goes something like this:
     Andrea:  "My personal life is falling apart"
     Nigel:  "That's what happens when you start doing well at work.  Let me know when your entire life goes up in smoke, then its time for a promotion."


This concept resonates with me!  As I've told y'all (I lived in Virginia for 7 years - I'm practically southern) - my body was/is falling apart.  Literally I am grumpy, tired, feel awful all the time and yet my boss is loving my work.  Compliments galore!  I *know* I am doing good work - I am busting butt despite feeling like cow dung on a daily basis.  My house [was] a PIG STY and I [was] getting to bed around 11-12 nightly.  I know, I know, there are 432903 readers (OK seriously there are only 2 readers let's be honest) thinking "I go to bed at 1AM every night - my life is way awfuler*" but I have always required the full 8 hrs to feel good.  It's a curse.  Finally, we have been eating out or eating convenience foods pretty much nonstop.  After wolfing down something that is too large in portion and too high in chemicals that I tell myself is a "better choice,"  I spend some Quality Time with my daughter (I really do, I make sure this is non-negotiable and more on that later) and then get back to work on my laptop as soon as she goes to bed.


DISCLAIMER:  A Pig Sty for me means there are piles of laundry laying around and clutter on the surfaces.  Not that there are dishes everywhere and roaches wandering around.  Just needed to tell you that.

Result:  Chubby, high insulin, asthma, allergies out of control, thyroid hormones completely out of whack.

I knew this behavior needed to stop but I didn't know how to stop it.  My recent breathing crisis kinda broke the cycle but here's what I'm ALSO doing to keep things in order in my life:

1.  GO TO BED between 10 and 11PM.  It can wait until tomorrow.
2.  Take my thyroid med at the same time daily.
3.  Take my allergy/asthma meds correctly until such time that I can discontinue them (hopefully soon).
4.  Find a list of go-to recipes that are healthy, made of whole foods without chemicals, and are not so ridiculously restrictive that we cannot actually sustain them.
5.  Hire a personal organizer to help me figure out how to keep my home clean and organized.  Luckily for me, one of my peeps (I have quite a collection of peeps that I keep around for life - she's one of them) is setting up a business doing professional "Get Your Shit Together" type stuff and offered to help me with a cleaning schedule that makes sense and works for us.  I will talk a whole lot about this in the future, but I will link to her awesome site here - because she deserves it.

So anyway - that's my plan.  So far I've gotten the sleep thing DOWN.  5 good nights and here I am at 9:49PM feeling kinda OK.  Not like I want to die and pass out imminently.  Unforch, I haven't worked on my manuscript or my presentation for work this week - so I'll talk to you next time.

S


*Didn't you know that when you start your own blog you can make up your own words?  It's cool.  Try it.

1 comment:

  1. Oh, you got this. This? ain't no thing. It is ON. xxoo

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