Shananigans

Monday, March 13, 2023

“Change is a choice. Choices. Choices over and over again.” I wrote this in a note to self at 4:29am last Thursday. 

I have been in a funk lately. Lately…does it ever really go away though? It changes in volume. The volume is turned up. 

I am annoyed by how I have been living. Explosive lows and I crawl into bed and watch White Lotus until I am drooling on myself and sometimes it is so bad that I am simultaneously scrolling Instagram for whatever drop of dopamine that might come. My mind numbed from the droll anxieties of my insecurities and inadequacies and all that I could do and what to do and how might it feel to do and why am I alone and why do I question myself so much and I got too high and now I can justify laying down because girl, just relax. Tomorrow I will be better. Tomorrow I will show up for myself in all the ways that I can’t quite get to today. Tomorrow holds an unparalleled power over me. 

This shit wants to swallow me and it really kinda feels good to be swallowed. I get to lay in bed and crawl into my jam jams and eat snacks and smoke a bunch of pot and binge watch the shit out of dramatic ass tv shows and scroll instagram so hard that I consume all the new content until I am down a rabbit hole of self love poetry quotes with frog drawings. Cozy place to be. 

WhOMP WhOMP WhOMP. I am bored of this narrative. There is relaxing and then there is numbed out zombie mode and numbed out zombie mode, although cozy, is not where I want to be. 

I have self diagnosed depression and anxiety. I also have self diagnosed coping mechanisms. And this blog is about to turn into one of those coping mechanisms. 

I have a project in mind and it might be kinda wonky and unruly and painful and raw and weird and whatever else, and that will be the point. Funk the Funk.

What is the project? It is part writing and part physical discipline, to run. To write and run. Run and write. And by run, I mean walk, hike, crawl, sit, galavant, stroll, whatever the fuck gets me outside and moving. And by write, I mean create, pay attention, articulate, and be aware. I want this space to be radically honest with myself and be accountable to the project. 

What is the project? To train for a 100 mile week. In seven days, I will run/walk 100 miles in a week in honor of my 29th birthday. I haven’t decided the exact seven days but somewhere around June 18th it will begin. I have a rough 13 weeks to build to that level of endurance. Thirteen demanding weeks and then seven more demanding days. 

On this side of things, the writing, I am going to set weekly intentions for my training. The goal of a 100 mile week is beyond a physical transformation (which I am curious about but will write about later). It is the mental shift I am looking for. The disciplined mind. Facing the Resistance. Setting an intention and building my confidence up around what it means to show up for myself every day. 

So this week my intention is to start each day with movement. Minimal is one mile every morning. Do more. No Less. Run. Walk. Move. The rationale? I am building routine. I am meeting resistance early, at the start of each day. I am setting the bar low at a minimum one mile for a reason, to out perform it. Build my confidence up. Make it fun. Enjoy what it means to move my body out in the sun. 

I will start tomorrow.