Squint your eyes and look closerForgive me, I just got back from my second C25K run and I'm sure I'm going to be a little rambley. Today's run was a little easier, although that 7th interval seems to be defeating me. I'm not sure what it is; I can do the last one fine, and most of the rest of them I can do, even if they aren't really comfortable. (For the record, I'm considering doing Week 1 for another week, since I'm still having struggling with Week 1. We'll see, I guess, when Wednesday next comes around...)
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am 32 flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision so you might want to turn your head
'Cause someday you're going to get hungry and eat all of the words that you just said
I am what I am, I am 32 flavors and then some
God help you if you are an ugly
Course too pretty is also your doom
'Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room
God help you if you are a phoenix and you dare to rise up from ash
A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy while you are just flying past
I am what i am, I am 32 flavors and then some
I'm taking my chances as they come
I am 32 flavors and then some
I'm nobody but I am someone, someone...
I'd never try to give my life meaning by demeaning you
And I would like to state for the record...
I did everything that I could do
I am beyond your peripheral vision so you might want to turn your head
'Cause someday you're going to be starving and eating al the words that you just said
That you said
I am what I am, I am what I am
I am 32 flavors and then some
I'm taking my chances as they come
I am 32 flavors and then some
I'm looking for truth and there is none
Today on my run, I saw: a flock of seagulls (not that flock of seagulls!) three rabbits, several geese, one absolutely adorable fluffy gosling, the same little girl that I saw on Wednesday - who waved to me again. I waved back - one police officer looking in his citation book while he banged on a door, two teenaged girls who were also running (they nodded to me as we passed each other) and one homeboy with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel to show off his chest and his pants hanging around his hips and threatening to go lower. (Didn't that go out of fashion yet? That was the stupid-in-thing when I was in college!)
I got a little further on my run-marker, maybe another 40 feet or so up the trail before turning around and heading back. That means I ran a little faster this time, so that's good.
Does anyone else find themselves composing blog entries while they're working out? Taking note of things you thought so you can try to remember to write them down later? Or is it just me?
I found myself on a number of occasions remembering Mike's advice: Resize your rings as soon as they get loose. I'm on my third wedding band, and my wife's threatening to divorce me if I lose another one.
I also found myself thinking about the first time that I realized that I might be fat. I was about nine years old. My cousin and I were over at our grandmother's house (my dad's mom) and having breakfast. We ate Special K, which is all my grandmother had in the way of cereal. Can you pinch more than an inch? was the advertisement on the back of the box. Adult cereal is always so BORING, I swear. My cousin (who was eleven) and I both could pinch an inch. At least.
I'm dealing with some strange issues recently. You know, guilt isn't a four letter word, but maybe it ought to be. I've had a number of people tell me recently that I'm 'inspiring'. I swear, the phrase coming out of my mouth recently most often is, "Yes, but..."
I don't feel the least bit inspiring, honestly. I feel annoying. Or like a poseur. A big fake. A big FAT fake, while we're at it. Which is weird, and I'm sure it's completely counterproductive. It's just... what right do I have to be inspiring to anyone? Every time someone says to me that I'm inspiring to them, I feel this surge of weird resentment and discomfort, followed closely by guilt (usually for feeling weird and resentful...)
"Lynn~At least you did it, [the Couch to 5 K run] which is more than I can say I did. So proud of you, that is great. I can't wait to see what you are doing a month from now. The fact that you are getting out when it's cold.....way to go. Everytime you post, you were just out and/or busy doing something or cleaning or enjoying your weight loss by stepping it up another notch. ...it's very inspiring!!!!;) " - AngeliaAnd as soon as I see something like that, my brain goes off on a twist. That's not me, it's ridiculous to think that, if she knew how many of my workouts I've skipped, she wouldn't think that, and I'm not doing anything special, just what needs to be done, and my god does Thomas resent it because he spent the whole walk the other day telling me how he can't possibly find any more time to workout and he's a slacker and I don't want him to feel like I'm pressuring him because I'm really not, but jeez, why is he mad at me about it and you know I completely forgot to get the kitchen floor mopped yesterday and I need like four things from the grocery store, and I'm not doing very well on keeping my list updated because this is like the fifth week in a row that I've forgotten to pick up any vitamins and do you think you're neglecting the Thieves' Guild emails here, slack GM that you are, and you know how Jeanne is, I'm sure she's biting her nails which she shouldn't do anyway, and have you even THOUGHT about calling your mom recently? you should do that, you know! Do you know what all these people are going to think about you when you quit, because you know you can't keep this up, you're running full tilt out here and you're going to fall, and it's going to hurt so much, maybe you should just slow down now, and gradually wean yourself out of it because you know you never do anything you set out to do, there's this huge list of failures in your life, your failure as a daughter, as a girlfriend, as a friend, as a wife, as a mother, and you just suck, you know that, so why the hell is anyone looking up to you and thinking you're inspirational, because you know damn well that you're NOT.
I really wish I could shut that voice the HELL UP. I can do these things. I am doing these things. I get into these long internal arguments where I say something like this. "Yes, but I quit smoking." "Yeah, but while we're at it, you never finished writing that novel you were working on, and you know, Carol was counting on you for that." "Well, that's true, but why do I have to be perfect?" "What, you think I thought you could be? Pah, you can't even be average."
I'm so tired of it. Why can't I just focus on what I've done and what I've accomplished and make that annoyingly superior voice in my head go his own way. I mean, what right does he have to carp and criticize? He's just a voice in my HEAD. I haven't seen HIM running any couch to 5K!
6 comments:
'Course I was counting on you to finish that novel. Of course, I was also counting on MYSELF to finish the other novel, and I'd be surprised if I've written more than two thousand words in the last six months (not counting work or blogging). So even if I did want you to finish that novel so I could find out what happened, I can hardly blame you without being the blackest pot there ever was... ;-)
--Carol
your internal voice sounds like mine, we are our own worst enemy sometimes but you're not alone.
Oh, Lynn, you made me cry a little. Maybe more than a little.
The voice is an idiot. And he's wrong. You are inspiring. There's not much inspiring about someone who has an easy time of it and succeeds. Anyone can succeed if it's easy. Anyone can STICK WITH IT if it's easy.
What's inspiring is when someone acknowledges that it's not easy and they just keep plugging away. You are a complete soldier no matter how bad it gets. Hell, no you're not perfect, and that's great. Nobody's perfect and people who pretend they are are just annoying. But you are real, and genuine and you don't sugar-coat it or pull punches. You admit the tough things and you just keep going.
And that's why you succeed. And it's why you're inspirational. And it's why even though those negative tapes keep playing, you're going to go right on inspiring even when you don't want to. :-) And eventually maybe that idiot voice will shut up.
As a side note, the idiot voice seems to plague a LOT of people, me included. I wonder how he does it all?
V.
The voice in your head is male? Why is that, do you think? I find that very interesting!
You're just going to have to trump him in everything he comes up with... It's possible, you know!
About the voice: A while back I started working very hard at talking to MYSELF in the same tone as I talk to other people, giving myself the same forgiveness, and just not being so darned MEAN to myself. It was a big effort, but gradually it started to work. I mean, don't get me wrong, I lapse into the negative stuff sometimes, I'm only human. But it's gotten better. I wonder if you could re-train your voice, too?
I know how much it stinks when you talk to yourself in a tone that you'd never use for others, and when you focus only on your own negatives when (if you were talking to someone else) you'd recognize all the positive stuff.
It sounds like you have another kinder voice inside that's getting stronger - feed and nurture and listen to *that* voice while you tame the negative voice!
Happyblogchick's right-- we're so much easier on other people!
I suspect that *everyone* (well... maybe not conservative radio talk-show hosts...) has had those soul-biting moments, has experienced that nagging lack of self-confidence. Other people have hated flaws, too, inner battles, successes that didn't *quite* live up to their dreams... but all we see is their outer selves-- how they treat others, what they've managed to accomplish. When we see signs of the inner struggle (since we usually can't see what's going on in other people's heads-- a good thing, I think)-- we're generally pretty forgiving (unless they're celebrities). They're human, right? At least we can give them the benefit of the doubt.
But for our OWN flaws... well. We are our own worst critics, because we don't see any need to be polite or PC with ourselves. We know the truth. We know the failures. We know what we've compromised. We know exactly how hard we didn't work for what we have. When it's our own skin, the claws come out the way they wouldn't for our worst enemies.
What it comes down to, I think, is that we know *too* much about ourselves. Gaze in the mirror all you like, you will never see more than your own self-perceptions. You will never see yourself from the *outside*... and that's a pity, because I think it would be much easier to accept how normal we all are, if we had that perspective.
Right. Couch time over.
(P.S.- I do not bite my nails.)
Post a Comment